Posted by Josefine Koehn on Thu, Nov 22, 2012 @ 08:00 PM
Walkways do not only enhance the aesthetics of your yard, they also create functional pathways to your garage, your shed and to your front door. Especially in the wintertime you will appreciate established and well-maintained walkways. They will make it easier and safer to get around on your property.
To prepare for the snowy season it is a good idea to clear all the sideways and walkways around your home. Clear any tools, hoses, rocks and debris form the walkways, so that shoveling or snow blowing will be easier and smoother once winter hits.
Check for Problem Spots Now
Another good idea is to check for cracks and other problem spots now. The extreme temperature-change will worsen the cracks over the winter – and the repairs will be more extensive and expensive in the spring. You also want to make sure to get rid of any low spots where puddles can develop and water might collect.
Inspect the Drainage System
Another important thing to check, is your water drainage system: Make sure, that rain and melting snow will not spill directly on your walkway, but can flow freely through your drainage system. If water gets under your walkway during the cold winter month, and the water freezes, it can actually rise up the walkway in certain spots. The consequence is, that the walkway will crack or get otherwise damaged in these areas.
Hire a Professional
“I can't tell you how many times I get calls for walkways from people who have an walkway that is in disrepair or simply never had one to begin with“, says Jamie Snyder of Albert Group Landscaping. „And every one of them in the end wished they had acted sooner.“ Albert Group is ICPI certified and a member of the NCMA (Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute and National Concrete Masonry Association respectively). “We don not only want to transform the curb appeal of your home, we have the skills necessary to install a walkway that will last the life of your home.”
Keep it Safe
By keeping your walkway clean and well maintained you also keep it safe. According to the National Floor Safety institute, there are more than 8 million emergency room visits and 21.000 deaths each year because of slip, trip and fall accidents. Most of these incidents happen on even floor, in 55 percent of all cases, the walkway is implicated as the cause.
Posted by Josefine Koehn on Fri, Oct 12, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
Fall is here. The leaves are turning color – and you might find yourself enjoying some long and beautiful days in your yard. Now is also the time to check your hardscape. Take a walk around your property and inspect your walkways and retaining walls for damage and cracks. Here are the most important factors you should look out for.
Weeds
Weeds are amazing. They can grow almost everywhere. And occasionally it might happen that something green is growing on your retaining wall or walkway. The easiest way to take care of unwanted weed growth is to pull the first sprout, before the plantlet can grow into a forest. If plucking weeds is not your thing, you can spray annually like you would with the lawn.
Leaves
A few leaves are not a problem, but if they accumulate, especially over the winter, they might discolor the surface over time. To protect your hardscape you also should make sure to wash salts and chemicals of the surface. And if the finish begins to wear, you should seal it again.
Surface Treatment
This is an area, which can be easily overlooked: The areas surrounding your wall. These areas should actually be treated as part of whole the wall design. It does not matter, if they are paved or beautified with landscape planting, mulch or turf. These areas provide an important function for the wall, they capture and route the water. Therefore you should replant bare areas and encourage the growth of ground covers and flowers. Most importantly look for areas of erosion and re-landscape if necessary. A little bit of work can prevent major erosion and therefore real problems.
Site Grading
While all retaining walls should be designed and built so that rain and water can drain easily, you might notice a puddle behind or in front of the wall. These low spots might occur due to excessive settling. If this happens you should not ignore it, but pull the landscape away and add enough fill to allow proper drainage.
If you take care of your hardscape it can last a long time, but it is important to check walls and walkways from time to time. Don’t let a little problem sit until spring comes, it just will get worse over the winter. Contact Albert Group Landscaping if you have any further questions.
Posted by James Snyder on Wed, Jul 13, 2011 @ 09:26 AM
If you’ve owned a home for a long time, then you’ve probably had quite a bit of work done on it, both inside and out. You know all too well that certain home improvement projects can take an interminable amount of time to complete, causing an extended disruption to your normal home routine. No matter how professional and efficient the crew conducting the work may have been, you probably wish they could have been done and out of your hair a lot sooner than they were so you could get back to normal.
But those of you contemplating an outdoor home beautification project, such as a patio, walkway, waterfall or the like, are in luck.
These projects require concrete, obviously. And traditional concrete projects take a lot of time to construct. But a company called StoneMakers has changed the home beautification game forever with a proprietary mix that drastically reduces the time it takes to build a project that will not only be aesthetically pleasing and durable, but will significantly improve the value of your home.
We recently built a retaining wall for a customer using the StoneMakers mix, and the results were incredible. We had heard all about this incredible product, but we remained skeptical until we actually saw it being used before our eyes in a product demonstration. But even then, we didn’t know just how revolutionary the StoneMakers concrete mix could be until we put it to use ourselves.
The retaining wall was 75 feet wide by 4 feet tall; not a huge job, per se, but a substantial one. Previously, that kind of project would take one of our crews about three days to complete. Astoundingly, though, when we built this particular wall using the StoneMakers mix, it took less than six hours to finish the job. That’s simply incredible, and calculates to some extreme savings for the customer when you consider most jobs are charged by the hour.
The main reason StoneMakers’ proprietary mix is superior to traditional concrete is that the mix allows an artisan to build, say, a wall, without having to use forms such as railroad ties to support the concrete. Not having to do so not only greatly speeds the construction process, it also results in a longer lasting and more aesthetically pleasing project that doesn’t require nearly the amount of maintenance that a project made of typical concrete needs.
It should be pretty obvious to you that we are true believers in the StoneMakers’ mix. To find out how we can put it to work for you, call Albert Group Landscaping at (845) 283-8787.
