Hardscaping in West Seattle

It means the usual exemptions stop applying. A retaining wall inside a designated area may need a permit regardless of height, where outside one it would be exempt under four feet. It can also mean the design needs engineering input depending on the situation. None of this makes a project impossible — we do a lot of work on these parcels — but it changes the timeline and the design, and finding out mid-build is the expensive version.

Terrace, in most cases. Two four-foot walls set apart usually cost less than one eight-foot wall because the taller one needs engineering, deeper footings and a permit the shorter pair may avoid. On a view lot there is a second reason: a single tall wall takes the sightline the lot is worth money for, and stepped terraces keep it while giving you usable ground between the levels.

Yes, and it is the thing to get right here. The plateau is glacial till — dense, predictable, slow-draining. The bluff edges carry looser material that moves and drains differently, so base depths and drainage that work in Westwood are not automatically right above Alki. We dig test holes on sloping ground before pricing rather than assuming the neighbourhood behaves as one.

Yes, and much of our highest-value work is exactly that. The honest constraint is access rather than slope: where a mini-excavator can reach the working area a job runs several times faster than where everything is barrowed down steps. We walk the access route before quoting and price it openly rather than discovering it on day one.