What To Expect During A Hardscape Build

Here is the part most contractors leave out of the sales conversation. A hardscape build tears up the lawn around it. We would rather you hear that now than on the last day of the job.

Your Yard Is Going To Take A Beating

To build a patio or a retaining wall we have to get machinery to the work area, and we have to put material somewhere while we work. We run ground protection mats and we do everything we reasonably can, but the grass underneath still pays for it.

The number that surprises people is the size. On a standard build it is common to finish beautiful new hardscape and be standing next to fifteen hundred square feet of bare dirt. That is not a mistake and it is not damage in the sense of something going wrong. It is what construction on a residential property looks like.

Sod Or Seed Is A Real Decision, Not An Upsell

We quote sod at the end of most builds. Sod means you have a finished lawn the day we pull off site.

Plenty of homeowners tell us they would rather seed it themselves and keep the money, and that is a completely reasonable call. Seed is cheaper. It also means weeks of watching dirt, and the result depends on weather and how disciplined you are about watering.

Our only ask is that you decide it on purpose, at quote time, rather than discovering it at the end.

Drainage And Grading Are The Other Thing Nobody Budgets For

Water has to go somewhere. Put a patio in the wrong place without addressing grade and you have moved a water problem toward your foundation.

This is one of the main reasons we quote on the property instead of over the phone. Access, grade, whether we are building into a hill or onto flat ground, new construction or older construction: those factors change the number more than the material you pick.

How A Job Actually Runs

Before the first day

Your foreman knocks on the door, introduces himself by name, and asks you to walk the property with him so everyone agrees on what is being built before anyone starts. If something in the job notes does not match what you expected, that walk is when we find out, not halfway through.

During the build

Ground protection mats go down where we can use them. Material gets staged. The crew works the same way on every job, because every one of our foremen was raised inside this company rather than hired in from outside.

At the end

We walk it with you again. If you took the sod, the lawn is finished when we leave. If you took the seed, we will tell you exactly what the watering schedule needs to be.