Paver Patios in West Seattle

Yes, and it is worth taking seriously. A patio is an impermeable surface, which means rainfall that previously soaked into that area now runs off it as concentrated flow. On level ground that is a drainage detail. On slide-sensitive bluff ground it is a stability question, because saturated soil is the mechanism that moves a slope. A large share of the bluff carries steep slope or landslide-prone designations, so we check the parcel against the city map before quoting and design where the runoff goes as part of the project rather than as an afterthought.

It affects the metalwork rather than the paving. Concrete pavers, poured concrete and natural stone are essentially unaffected by salt-laden wind. What corrodes noticeably faster in an exposed Alki or Fauntleroy position is untreated or low-grade metal, and a patio has more of it than people realise — railing posts and their fixings, the ties and pins in a segmental seat wall, drainage grates, light housings, and the edge restraint spikes holding the field in. The adjustment is specification rather than design: better-grade fittings on anything structural, and stainless or hot-dip galvanised where a cheaper fixing would be buried and unreachable. The pavers will outlast the hardware unless the hardware is specified for the position.

Terrace, in almost every case where the fall exceeds about a foot across the intended area. Building one large level surface on a slope means either a tall retaining wall at the low edge or a surface that is subtly wrong underfoot, and both are worse than the alternative. Two or three smaller connected platforms stepping down give you more usable space in total, need shorter and cheaper walls, and read better from the house. On a West Seattle view lot they also keep the outlook, which a single tall wall close to the building does not.

Because the exposure here is genuinely harder than the rainfall figure suggests. Almost all of Seattle's 38 inches falls between October and March, and July and August are dry — and a west-facing plateau or bluff garden gets the strongest afternoon sun and the most wind of anywhere in the city. Planting around a patio in that position loses moisture far faster than the equivalent bed in a sheltered east-facing garden. It is the main reason we specify zoned irrigation more often on this side of the water, and why exposure-tolerant planting outperforms the obvious choices.