Ideas for concrete yard slab
I’m looking for some good ideas for spri=ucing up the concrete slab that extends from the house to about 10′ out into the yard. I’ve kandscaped the yard and that looks great. There is a deck over part of the slab. Ideas….paint (doubtful), stain, pavers??? I think I’ll post a reno blog of the work…
I’m looking for some good ideas for spri=ucing up the concrete slab that extends from the house to about 10′ out into the yard. I’ve kandscaped the yard and that looks great. There is a deck over part of the slab. Ideas….paint (doubtful), stain, pavers???
I think I’ll post a reno blog of the work done on the yard. Thanks
I used 12″ x 12″ IPE tiles from swiftdeck.
They aren’t cheap but there are some currently
on ebay for like 5% of retail. Go to swiftdeck’s
website to see what they look like. You can lay them yourself as they click together.
Then why do they make non-chemical mosquito pesticide and market it for lawns and gardens, 6:27?
Obviously some pepole do have problems with water pooling in some gardens and yards. Also nobody said don’t have any green in a yard. They just said maintain it and not leave it an overgrown jungle. And look out for standing water.
I find this web site helpful.http://www.concretenetwork.com/ Iam thinking of acid staining my slab. Please post if you have.
More green does not equal more mosquitoes. Standing water does. You don’t need to use a pesticide on grass–that’s crazy.
Standing water in yards is BAD for breeding mosquitos. We have part of our yard green and we don’t have standing water, though. I think the real culprit are lumpy roofs on nearby houses, where they get pooling that doesn’t dry up within a few hours. Also some of our neighbors have overgrown crap yards and I’m sure they get pooling of water deep in the overgrown grass. Not to say they should take out the green. Hate that. But just maintain it please! And use a safe, bio-pesticide for mosquitos on the lawn.
We have about 20 feet of cement that comes out from the back of the house. About half is covered by a second floor deck. I used lattice work to close off this area to make a storage space. Then we used pavers to cover the rest of the cement. We got them free off of Brownstoner but it was truly backbreaking labor to install ourselves. (Good source of pavers is Glenwood Mason – we had to do some fill in). Another suggestion is to build a wood deck a few inches above the cement that is there now and add built in planters, benches etc. I heard once from a long time resident of our ‘hood that the reason a lot of the backyards have so much cement is mosquitos. More green = more mosquitos. It can make a backyard nearly inhabitable in the summer.
OK,,,lets get back to the original question….I have 10 feet of concrete that I’m not removing…I have another 30′ of landscaped yard that will look fantastic come Spring. There’s no runoff problems and my basement is completely dry. There is a hatch access to the basement up agaianst the house (also dry). I just want some ideas from anyone who has resurfaced or done something to make the slab look better…thanks 12:57 and 1:25
from nyc.gov
“If my neighbors don’t take care of the standing water in their yards, should I report them to the Health Department?”
“We ask City residents and business owners to take primary responsibility for eliminating standing water on their property. However, DOHMH takes reports to track significant problem areas. Reports can be made to the City’s Information Line at 311 or through our web site at nyc.gov/health/wnv.”
That’s just the issue of standing water. Runoff going into a neighbor’s house of course results in a lawsuit if you don’t correct it. They should just put up with water coming from your badly graded yard? Right.
But of course the renter at 1:23 knows all about houses and NYC house ownership from “seeing” them.
We got an inch of muddy water in the basement TWICE last year because of all the runoff in the grassy yard coming at the house because the cement at the back was not graded properly. We had it graded so it now directs runoff from the back of the house AND any from the grassy part of the yard that isn’t absorbed into the ground, towards the drain to the drywell. Which is what’s supposed to happen. If you have only grass right at the back of a Broookyn attached house, there is NO WAY to control the grade. In as little as a year the grade could change due to rain and erosion. In suburban houses, they can be built up on an incline or hill. So they can have grass right up against the house. But Brooklyn is on clay. The houses have been there a 100 years. The houses have sunk into this clay. They are are not located on an incline above their yards at all.
I have the same exact backyard and question. I was told if you have enough clearance up against the back of the house, you could install pavers right on top of the concrete, keeping the grade as is to direct water to the drain. I’m not undertaking any project that grand, so I’m hoping for an easier way to spruce it up in the short term. All I can come up with is adding flowers and plants in planter boxes.