In recent years, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the use of faux stone as well as concrete flagstones and pavers. Popular for their affordability and ease of installation as well as the ever-improving realism of their appearance, these materials are widely available for use on decks, pathways and driveways
Last time, we looked at an instance in which migrating water presents mostly aesthetic challenges – scale formation, evaporation residues and other hassles that simply make a watershape look worse than it should. This time, we’ll look into a case where the migrating water not only made the watershape look
In my work as a construction-defect expert witness, I see a certain problem in the design and construction of spillways all too frequently: When the system is initiated, the flow of water down the face of the dam wall will behave more or less as desired, holding to a narrow
In my work as a construction-defect expert witness, I’ve seen how damaging salty water can be to hardscape materials around pools and spas equipped with saltwater chlorination systems. It’s so common that, personally, I now try to avoid using those devices on the watershapes I design and build. It’s not
Even after all these years, in which countless seminars and classes have covered proper techniques for designing, engineering and building vanishing-edge pools, I am still all-too-frequently confronted in my role as a construction-defects expert witness by installations that are just plain wrong in one way or another. The biggest problems
In a great many of the renovation projects I come across, one part of the program involves raising the floor in the deep end of the pool to create the classic play-pool contour with a deeper area in the middle and shallower sections on both ends. This retrofit brings these
Last time, I mentioned the fact that many of my design clients these days are environmentally aware and want to make certain I can help them devise landscapes and hardscape treatments that make sense in eco-friendly ways. To at least the same extent, clients who contact us at The Green
Steps and landings are among the most common of all elements in landscapes. Just about any setting involving a vertical transition will include steps of some sort, and there’s no better design element than a landing to establish a means of changing directions or looking out on a desirable view.
Let’s start this time with a key definition. In the deepest part of a typical pool, you ordinarily carve out a two-by-two-foot box and backfill it with gravel. On top of that gravel sits a valve designed to open when the water pressure outside the shell is greater than the
Most everyone assumes that French drains have their name because engineers in France were way ahead of the curve in figuring out how to deal with the hydrostatic pressure that can damage walls and other types of structures. The truth, however, is that the systems were actually an innovation by
