No down payment. You pay when the project is finished.
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM · Capitol Hill, Seattle
Paver Installation · Seattle
Adding a paved surface in Seattle is not only a construction decision, it is a stormwater one. Every square foot of new paving is a square foot the ground no longer absorbs, and on a city lot that water has to go somewhere it did not go before — usually toward a neighbour, a foundation or a street drain that was not sized for it. That is why the first question on a Seattle paver job is not what the surface will look like but where the rain that lands on it will end up. Where the answer is genuinely difficult, a permeable system stops being the expensive option and starts being the only one that works, because it removes the runoff rather than relocating it.
Covered outdoor lounge with a fire table beside an artificial turf lawn on a Seattle property
What we get called about
Seattle takes 38+ inches of rain a year and almost all of it arrives October to March. That single fact decides more landscaping outcomes here than plant choice ever does — a patio without a drainage plan is a patio that heaves, and a lawn on undisturbed till is a lawn that sits under water all winter.
Worth knowing in Seattle
Before anyone quotes, walk the lot in heavy rain and watch where water already goes. Ten minutes in a downpour tells you more about what a new paved surface will do than any drawing, and it is the difference between designing the drainage in and discovering it in November.
A permeable installation looks like ordinary paving and behaves like ground. Rainfall passes through wider joints filled with clean angular chippings, into an open-graded stone reservoir underneath, and soaks away — so the surface produces little or no runoff to route anywhere.
That is worth paying for on a lot with no good discharge point: no daylight fall to a street or ditch, no capacity in the existing system, or a boundary where sending water next door would be both rude and a liability. It is also worth it where the total impervious area is close to a threshold, because a permeable surface changes the arithmetic.
It is not worth it everywhere. Permeable systems need somewhere for the water to actually go once it is through — on dense till with a high water table, the reservoir fills and stops working. They also need periodic vacuuming to keep the joints open, and a surface that silts up is a conventional surface with a deeper base. On a lot with a straightforward fall to a legitimate discharge point, a conventional build with properly set falls does the same job for less.
The method
The sequence does not change between neighbourhoods — what changes is the ground it is applied to. Full detail on the paver installation service page.
What the subgrade is, how wet it gets, and where water currently goes. On a till lot those three answers change the build more than the choice of paver does.
Every surface gets a fall, including the ones that look flat. Where water leaves is decided before a shovel moves, not adjusted at the end once the levels no longer allow it.
Down to competent ground, then compacted before any rock goes in. A good base built on an uncompacted subgrade just moves the failure one layer down.
Layer by layer to the specified depth, with a plate or roller sized for the job rather than whatever is on the van. This stage decides whether the surface is still flat in ten years.
Bedding course screeded to depth, units laid off a string line, perimeter saw-cut, and edge restraint fixed before any joint is filled.
Polymeric sand swept in, the field compacted to seat the units, then the whole area washed off — the last step is the one a rushed crew skips.
What it costs in Seattle
Seattle paver installation runs $18 to $40 per square foot. What moves it here more than the units do is disposal and access — spoil from a deeper excavation has to be carted off a lot with no room to stockpile it, and material barrowed through a side gate is priced as labour rather than material. Permeable systems sit at the top of the range because the reservoir base is deeper and the aggregate is a specified open-graded rock rather than ordinary crushed base.
You pay after the project is fully completed.
The estimate you sign is the price you pay.
Spread the cost with no interest.
Covers hardscape work; vegetation excluded.
Local questions
General questions about this service are on the service page. These are the ones that only come up here.
Yes, and that is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a formality. A paved surface produces close to a hundred per cent runoff where planted ground absorbed a good share of the rainfall, so the volume arriving at the low point of your property goes up on the day the job finishes. On a Seattle lot that low point is frequently the house, the neighbour, or a street drain already at capacity in a heavy autumn. The answer is either to route the extra water deliberately — falls, a channel drain, a piped run to somewhere it can legitimately discharge — or to stop producing it in the first place with a permeable build.
Because the conditions here suit it and the surface never dries out long enough to discourage it. A north-facing or heavily shaded surface in a city garden may get no direct sun for months, and with nine wet months there is always moisture in the joints for spores to take hold in. Pressure washing removes it and also strips the jointing sand, which gives the next crop somewhere better to root — so an aggressive clean often makes the following year worse. The durable improvements are getting the falls right so water leaves rather than sitting, using polymeric jointing that gives roots less to hold, and opening up overhanging planting so the surface gets some drying time.
Frequently yes, and on an older Seattle property it is often the best-value option on the table. Clay pavers from earlier decades were fired hard and are typically in better condition than the base beneath them, so the units come up, the base gets rebuilt properly, and the same brick goes back down with the character intact and the movement gone. What rules it out is genuine spalling — units flaking or crumbling at the face rather than simply worn — or a quantity shortfall, because matching old brick is difficult and a patched area announces itself. We lift a small section and look before quoting either option.
By hand, and we price it that way honestly rather than discovering it on day one. On a tight city lot base rock, bedding sand and pavers all arrive by the pallet at the kerb and are moved through the house side or a gate by barrow, which turns material handling into the largest labour line on the job. Deliveries are sized to what can be cleared the same day, because a pallet cannot sit on a Seattle street overnight. Where a gate is genuinely too narrow, the honest options are a temporary fence panel removal, a conveyor, or in a few cases a crane over the roof — and we will tell you which one applies before you have a number in your hand.
Serving Seattle and surrounding neighbourhoods
Capitol Hill · Ballard · Queen Anne · Magnolia · West Seattle · Green Lake · Wedgwood · Madison Park · Laurelhurst · Mount Baker · Seward Park · Fremont · Wallingford · Columbia City
98101 · 98102 · 98103 · 98104 · 98105 · 98106 · 98107 · 98108 · 98109 · 98112 · 98115 · 98116 · 98117 · 98118 · 98119 · 98121 · 98122 · 98125 · 98126 · 98133 · 98134 · 98136 · 98144 · 98146 · 98177 · 98199
Recent work
Paver PatioView full sizeThe dining patio, the water and the raised deck are one continuous route rather than three features dropped on a lawn — the curve of the patio edge sets up the planted bed and the pond sits inside it.
Design & BuildView full sizeA whole garden built in one go on a wooded lot: brick terrace at the bottom, stone rockery holding the bank, a waterfall running through it, and a pergola marking the top level.
Paver PatioView full sizeLarge charcoal units set with open joints for grass, so the surface drains through itself rather than off itself. It photographs best wet, which in Seattle is most of the year.
Paver PatioView full sizeLong plank units in two greys laid in a running bond under a covered walk. From the house it reads as one surface; up close it reads as two tones. Both were the point.
We come out, look at the ground, and put a fixed written price together. No deposit, and it does not change once agreed.
Free estimate
Three minutes on the form. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM, and we come out and look at the site before quoting anything.
Or call (425) 533-9734
Thank you — we have your details. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM. If it is urgent, call (425) 533-9734.
