Pervious Paving – What’s that all about?
[/caption] Driveways tend to be one of the largest impervious surfaces on a property and can be the main cause of a reduction in patio space. Many municipalities require less than 50% of lot coverage to be impervious and that includes the house itself. On small lots it doesn’t leave much room to do much in terms of patios, pools or out buildings. A growing trend has been to install crushed gravel driveways that create an old world feel while minimizing impervious surfaces. There are interlocking pavers as well as pervious concrete that can also satisfy requirements for non pervious surfaces. I have also seen some innovative solutions in the use of stone on sand with gravel, industrial fiberglass gratings and walks used as architectural accents and the use of natural stone with planting around it to make a beautiful thing from a tricky problem. The adage I have always returned to is “Accentuate the Problem” rather than hide it. If you have an erosion control problem, make that the primary visual feature of your landscape. If you happen to have a boggy area in your yard that you are trying to figure out how and where to drain it to, plant bog plants and make it into a real bog. You can bring in frogs and salamanders and even re-circulate water to create a water feature.
[caption id="attachment_318" align="aligncenter" width="615" caption="We make an ordinary drainage ditch in front of our office look GOOD !!!"]
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[caption id="attachment_312" align="aligncenter" width="629" caption="We use native grasses and water loving plants to help retain the pervious nature of the surrounding landscape."]
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We all must learn to make lemonade from the lemons we have over loading our systems. If you have serious erosion control issues that require storm drains, walls with drainage behind them, these require more typical solutions of storm drains, culverts and drain pipes. For water retention there are countless solutions that can be both practical and beautiful to look at. Let us examine your property and accentuate the solution.]]>
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We are changing the way that traditional pervious concrete looks and are paving driveways and parking lots all over the bay area.We are pervious concrete specialists and The Leader in Green Pavement Water Solutions in Northern California.We are looking forward to working with you.
Robert, would your pervious concrete work around swimming pools, as a pool deck? What about kids running and slipping? Is the surface like a cheese grater, or more like loosely packed aggregate? Also, have you had any applications in and under the drip line / root zone of root sensitive trees like oaks? We have a project in Scotts Valley where we’re coming up against permeable lot coverage and tree root impact alike, and were considering either traditional interlocking pavers or a pervious concrete such as your product. May I post a photo from your website here in this blog to give people an idea of what we’re talking about?