Expert Hardscaping in Lakewood, WA

Lakewood is one of the easier places in Pierce County to build a paver base and one of the stricter places to build near water. Inland lots usually drain well. Lots on American Lake, Gravelly Lake, Lake Steilacoom, and Waughop Lake, or near wetlands and creeks, face rules that apply to paving of any size.

ND Brick Pavers has 19 years and more than 425 projects behind it, a 4.7 Google rating, and crews made up only of our own employees. Our office is in Yelm, and Lakewood sits between it and Tacoma, so it is a regular part of our week.

USDA soil survey data maps most of Lakewood as Spanaway gravelly sandy loam, or urban land mixed with Spanaway where the ground has been built over. The Spanaway series is very deep and formed in glacial outwash. USDA rates it somewhat excessively drained with high saturated hydraulic conductivity, and gives a typical slope of 0 to 15 percent. USDA maps the same series across much of the outwash country south toward Yelm.

For a paver project, that is a strong start. Water leaves the base quickly, so the long winter soak that ruins patios on till soils is less of a risk. Permeable pavers often work well on this ground, as long as the system sits well above any seasonal water.

The cautions are different here. Loose gravel needs careful compaction under the base, and edges need firm restraint, or the outer pavers creep. Rounded cobbles near the surface can make excavation slow. And because water moves down through Spanaway soil fast, whatever goes on the surface, such as cleaners or sealer overspray, reaches the groundwater faster too, so we keep chemicals off bare ground.

Lakewood is not all gravel. Our grid check of USDA data also found Dupont muck, a very poorly drained soil formed in organic deposits, and an Everett, Spanaway, and Spana complex. The Spana series is somewhat poorly drained and sits in depressions and troughs on the outwash terraces. Low spots near lakes and wetlands can hold water that the surrounding gravel sheds.

Muck and other organic soils compress under load. A paver patio or driveway on muck needs the organic layer removed or bridged, and sometimes a different location. A soil test on the actual patio footprint tells us which case we have.

NOAA's 1991-2020 normals for a volunteer station in Steilacoom, on Lakewood's west edge, show 43.40 inches of precipitation a year, with about 17 inches from December through February. On Spanaway gravel that water soaks in quickly. On muck and in depressions it does not, and those are the lots where we plan for wet-season pumping and covered excavations.

The City of Lakewood's Do I Need a Building Permit handout exempts non-shoreline, upland retaining walls up to 4 feet tall, measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall. The exemption does not apply when the wall supports a surcharge such as backfilled soil, a road, a driveway, parking, a building, or water pressure, including underground stormwater infiltration facilities.

Platforms, sidewalks, and driveways are exempt when they are no more than 30 inches above grade on non-waterfront lots, but only 18 inches on waterfront lots. And the handout lists a structure or new impervious surface of any size inside a shoreline buffer, a critical area, or their buffers and setbacks as needing a permit, which includes patios under 18 inches tall.

That last rule matters for lakefront homes. A small paver landing near the water, which would be exempt on an inland lot, needs review on a shoreline lot. We check the address against shoreline and critical area maps before we design, and we plan any permit into the schedule.

Most paver problems we see in Lakewood come from treating gravel ground like clay ground, or the reverse. The symptoms are easy to spot once you know them.

Lakewood requests tend to follow lot type.

In Lakewood, our first stop after the soil test is the city's shoreline and critical area mapping, because that decides whether even a small patio needs a permit. The free 3D design is then drawn around what the site allows. Your free quote shows how size, base depth, soil, access, material, drainage, demolition, slope, and any permit affect the work, and our crew carries it from excavation to the final sweep, cleaning up every day.