We all love a great patio or walkway. They command attention as well as lead you to the front door. The decisions you make about a hardscaping project will determine if it is sustainable or not. Contemporary design easily couples of ecological concerns. Together, they make magical places in a yard. But what makes a patio or walkway sustainable? Let me tell you in this blog.
In this blog, I’m going to go through a couple of recent projects of mine to highlight how you can make your next hardscaping project as sustainable as possible. First things first, when I refer to hardscaping in this blog, I’m talking about using pavers to build a patio or walkway. Pavers can be used for lots of other things, but to keep things simple I’m only talking about patios and walkways here. There are lots of other types of hardscaping too like walls and driveways, but I’m not covering them in this post. Last thing around this, it’s really important to find out what your local zoning department considers hardscaping before you do any type of project. Most municipalities have restrictions on how much of your property can be covered by hardscaping and other structures like your house, garage and deck.
The Fun Part
Every hardscaping project we design and install has 4 parts to it. Each of these items has non-sustainable and sustainable options with real impacts to the natural world. These elements are: excavation, demo, base and paver. Let’s go over each and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of all of them. Before we do, I can’t say enough about having a design for your project. Below is an image of a project that is more sustainable because of how it is designed as much as the number of parts with sustainable features. I’ll get into a little more detail about this project later in the blog.
The Fun Part
Every hardscaping project we design and install has 4 parts to it. Each of these items has non-sustainable and sustainable options with real impacts to the natural world. These elements are: excavation, demo, base and paver. Let’s go over each and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of all of them. Before we do, I can’t say enough about having a design for your project. Below is an image of a project that is more sustainable because of how it is designed as much as the number of parts with sustainable features. I’ll get into a little more detail about this project later in the blog.
The right design can make a sustainable project even more sustainable. In fact, many contemporary ways of envisioning a walkway will highlight and amplify its eco-friendly features.
Excavation, Sometimes
Of all the elements, excavation is always a sometimes. If you are replacing a walkway or patio, you might not really need lots of excavation because the space was dug out during the original project. If you do need to excavate, it’s best to find a home of the dirt on your property. This way, it means you aren’t carting it away and paying for someone to take it. Usually, soil is good for vegetable gardens and flower beds even if it may not look it. If you coordinate with other landscape projects, the soil can be used to overseed your lawn or improve drainage.
Demolition
Most homeowners don’t have newly constructed houses so they are always replacing something that is already there. The image below shows a walkway project we completed recently. The original walkway had an 8-inch concrete base with bricks on top of it.
Excavation, Sometimes
Of all the elements, excavation is always a sometimes. If you are replacing a walkway or patio, you might not really need lots of excavation because the space was dug out during the original project. If you do need to excavate, it’s best to find a home of the dirt on your property. This way, it means you aren’t carting it away and paying for someone to take it. Usually, soil is good for vegetable gardens and flower beds even if it may not look it. If you coordinate with other landscape projects, the soil can be used to overseed your lawn or improve drainage.
Demolition
Most homeowners don’t have newly constructed houses so they are always replacing something that is already there. The image below shows a walkway project we completed recently. The original walkway had an 8-inch concrete base with bricks on top of it.
We had to remove all of the concrete to be able to install the new walkway. You can’t believe how much concrete came out of the ground. Though fairly short, we had to get rid of over 3 cubic yards of waste. All of it had to be taken offsite and dumped. When this happens, we use select waste facilities so we can have all of it recycled.
This is the ideal way to deal with old concrete. If it goes into standard waste streams, it will be a long time before it degrades. In all of our projects, we typically recycle 95 to 100% of all our construction waste.
Base
The base is the most important factor to make your project sustainable. This is because the base will determine if you are allowing or cutting off the natural flow of rainwater into the ground. The normal process is that rain falls on the ground that is covered with grass and other plants and slowly infiltrates into the earth. When you use concrete, you are completely stopping that natural condition. In the big scheme of things, all the rainwater that runs off goes into rivers and streams carrying pollutants and causing flooding. On a microlevel, if water isn’t allowed to go into the ground, it can create pooling and muddy spots at the edge of your new patio.
Base
The base is the most important factor to make your project sustainable. This is because the base will determine if you are allowing or cutting off the natural flow of rainwater into the ground. The normal process is that rain falls on the ground that is covered with grass and other plants and slowly infiltrates into the earth. When you use concrete, you are completely stopping that natural condition. In the big scheme of things, all the rainwater that runs off goes into rivers and streams carrying pollutants and causing flooding. On a microlevel, if water isn’t allowed to go into the ground, it can create pooling and muddy spots at the edge of your new patio.
To fix this, we never use solid concrete as a base for the pavers. Instead, we use compacted recycled concrete (also known as RCA) and stone dust. The image above shows a base we have started to install using it. RCA is recycled concrete that has been broken into a combination of 1” and smaller pieces and then mixed together. It allows for some water to pass into the soil below. It’s not as good as areas covered in plants, but it’s much better than solid concrete. Below is a close-up view of what it looks like.
For larger projects, say a 300ft by 300ft hardscaped space, you can add what’s called ¾” clean gravel below the RCA and capture thousands of gallons of water. This application is more appropriate for institutional and urban projects than residential.
Pavers
By the time you get to the pavers, you are either an eco-hero or not. However, paver selection is a big factor. It’s what everyone sees and thereby the most important part of the new space. This is also were design skills come in and help amplify all of the other green decisions along the way. For the project shown below, you can see that we used a paver that is really nice and modern. We eliminated a few of the pavers and let grass grow in.
Pavers
By the time you get to the pavers, you are either an eco-hero or not. However, paver selection is a big factor. It’s what everyone sees and thereby the most important part of the new space. This is also were design skills come in and help amplify all of the other green decisions along the way. For the project shown below, you can see that we used a paver that is really nice and modern. We eliminated a few of the pavers and let grass grow in.
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This creates a visually striking surface that is playful and sophisticated as well as allows for rainwater to infiltrate into the ground. We built the base aggregated stone so that water doesn’t pool anywhere making a muddy mess. The grassy spots keep the natural cycle of water alive and makes for a wonderful feature.
Design, Design, Design
Both of the projects shown in this blog needed more attention than standard projects. The devil is in the details. I’ve trained my team to benefit from years of experience and make sure we can execute sustainable projects with great precision. For example, when you have grassy spots within a hardscaped surface, you have to make sure the pavers don’t move or slump overtime. We have a special way of edging them so that the integrity withstands the wear and tear of use.
Sustainable + Contemporary
Sustainable design always needs to be integrated within the overall aesthetic. Contemporary sensibilities are more naturally capable to including green features than traditional work. For one, it’s more playful and doesn’t presuppose a material. This gives us and the homeowner more leverage to find the best answer for a exterior space that has style and the planet part of its DNA, and always means the project is a bigger success for it.
Design, Design, Design
Both of the projects shown in this blog needed more attention than standard projects. The devil is in the details. I’ve trained my team to benefit from years of experience and make sure we can execute sustainable projects with great precision. For example, when you have grassy spots within a hardscaped surface, you have to make sure the pavers don’t move or slump overtime. We have a special way of edging them so that the integrity withstands the wear and tear of use.
Sustainable + Contemporary
Sustainable design always needs to be integrated within the overall aesthetic. Contemporary sensibilities are more naturally capable to including green features than traditional work. For one, it’s more playful and doesn’t presuppose a material. This gives us and the homeowner more leverage to find the best answer for a exterior space that has style and the planet part of its DNA, and always means the project is a bigger success for it.
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