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Demolish a Perfectly Good Hardscape

It was about 10 years ago we installed the main patio off the back of the house, and it was 5 years ago we added another 250 sf or so to it.

Above you’re seeing the demolition of the patio – what you’re not seeing is the homeowner and I crying on each others’ shoulders.

Why are we crying?  Take a look at how this patio looked before the excavator went to work on it with the hydraulic hammer.

This was just one of the decisions the client had to make in order for the town to approve the pool proposal we were presenting.

It came down to “lot coverage,” which is the amount of impervious surface on the property relative to the overall size of the property. 

Impervious surfaces are surfaces that do not allow water to pass-through to the ground (e.g. driveways, walkways, driveway, house, detached garage and other accessory buildings, etc.). 

Impervious surface is calculated in terms of square footage and respective percentages — and as you might expect, there are limits to how much you can have.

After the engineer drafted a current site plan showing all existing features on the property, the calculations revealed that already the existing impervious surfaces exceeded the allowable coverage.

With a preliminary presentation to the town, I learned that they would consider the application for the pool project if we removed some of the existing impervious surfaces and, in our new project proposal did not exceed the impervious coverage currently on the property.

The homeowner agreed to the town’s stipulation and the project began.

Here’s the previous post for this project. And here’s the next.

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