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Outside

Michael Detrick
Michael Detrick
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retaining wall

Q

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Solar lights on pergola

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Lower columns on pergola

Q

Comment
Yardvaark

Often, the best resolution in landscape design is achieving the optimum balance among all of the possible trade-offs. If you put the wall too far from the house, it will be larger and more expensive. If you put it too close, It may not allow fast enough transfer of storm water. If it is not critical to use the walk during a rainstorm, I think I'd consider a walk that was more or less centered in the space and design it to, also, be part of the drainage system, i.e, that is is swaled to carry water, while the grade running along the house is sloped downward toward the center of the dished out walk. The swaled walk would slope downward toward the path that water would take as it left your property. Most of the time, the average amount of water would stay within the confines of the walk edges. In a large storm, it may overflow, but would still move toward its exit path. I would create the walk like this because you have so little room. BTW, it does not look like you have 14.5' from house to fence. Measure the distance along a level line, not along the sloped ground. One drawback to using a walk as a drainage channel is that it will become stained over time. But I would consider this minor relative to all the other trade-offs. If the walk served as a main entry to some area, then I might consider an alteration to the above-described scheme. I think I would avoid a deck if your plan is to drain water below it. If the drainage channel needed attention, there would be no way to access it.

Q

Reply to: Often, the best resolution in landscape design is achieving the optimum balance among all of the possible trade-offs. If you put the wall too far from the house, it will be larger and more expensive. If you put it too close, It may not allow fast enough transfer of storm water. If it is not critical to use the walk during a rainstorm, I think I'd consider a walk that was more or less centered in the space and design it to, also, be part of the drainage system, i.e, that is is swaled to carry water, while the grade running along the house is sloped downward toward the center of the dished out walk. The swaled walk would slope downward toward the path that water would take as it left your property. Most of the time, the average amount of water would stay within the confines of the walk edges. In a large storm, it may overflow, but would still move toward its exit path. I would create the walk like this because you have so little room. BTW, it does not look like you have 14.5' from house to fence. Measure the distance along a level line, not along the sloped ground. One drawback to using a walk as a drainage channel is that it will become stained over time. But I would consider this minor relative to all the other trade-offs. If the walk served as a main entry to some area, then I might consider an alteration to the above-described scheme. I think I would avoid a deck if your plan is to drain water below it. If the drainage channel needed attention, there would be no way to access it.

Q

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