NEW! Pre-Cast Pervious Concrete Tree Well Covers for City of Los Angeles!

For all of you that have been on the edges of your seats - waiting for a reliable producer of pre-cast pervious concrete tree well covers that meets the LA City S-450-4 Specification for permeable tree well covers - you can celebrate! Pacific Pervious has successfully installed 6 pre-cast pervious concrete tree well covers at 619 Westlake Ave. You can see them there! Or buy your own. We have a limited stock and can create to order. Lead times vary, we can work with you!

Here are some photos of the Westlake installation. Contact us for more information!

Peekaboo Greenery in Pervious Concrete

At the corner of Magnolia and Colfax in Studio City, there is a beautiful contemporary mixed use building that features pervious concrete inset with plants. The designers integrated the usable pervious hardscape with plants for an immersive green experience to delightful effect. This is 5” of pervious concrete in natural grey with 3/8” aggregate. The planter pockets were formed out before the pour, and planted after the cure plastic came up. You can see the integrated planter provides a welcoming space and breaks up the pavement expanse.

PerkTop - a Fine Fine Topper

We have been first experimenting and now fully installing PerkTop, a fine grain permeable topper that infiltrates water almost as fast a 3/8” aggregate pervious concrete but with a much finer surface finish.

PerkTop is installed on top of a thicker layer of 3/8” aggregate pervious concrete. PerkTop can be colored integrally as well as stained. Some of the most beautiful saturated colors come with both. Take a peek at some of our finished projects. If you would like addresses to see the installations, or tailored recommendations for your projects, give us a call!

Pervious Asphalt or Pervious Concrete?

On the left you see traditional sealed Asphalt paving. On the right you see permeable asphalt- a bit rougher and sometimes can absorb water!

Lately we have been coming across a bit of pervious asphalt. Two instances come to mind that we want to share with you-

1. A case of pervious asphalt for a church in Costa Mesa. A builder called us, concerned that his church, for whom he was doing some sizable improvements to the church campus, was committing to a new large parking lot that the local regulations required being permeable. Their designer, with an eye for value, no doubt, specified pervious asphalt. Our builder was concerned about the longevity and durability of the material. Since he was a part of the church community, he was concerned he would hear about any issues over time. So he called us! We priced out a pervious concrete alternative. It was more expensive then the asphalt - but it was also going to be a multi-decade investment in a low maintenance permeable pavement. We went to the church and discussed it with another church member - and they agreed. Pervious concrete for them, was a better, more sustainable investment for their church. We installed the pervious concrete parking lot and it looks great!

   There is a time and place for all materials - but if you are making an investment in a property for the long term, pervious concrete is your best value as a durable, low-maintenance passive infiltration device that your friends and community members can walk and roll across with no issue for years to come!

2. Pervious asphalt and pervious ramps. Another project just came across our desk for some custom ramps to roll large equipment into and out of a new showroom. The equipment weighed as much as a car but with teeny tiny wheels - and the local permitting body was requiring that this improvement be pervious. So they needed a rigid, flat and smooth surface that drained. Pervious concrete and PerkTop to the rescue! Pervious concrete is traditionally made with a 3/8” aggregate. It can be crushed or round but the sizing being consistent is the most important aspect. Despite the fact that 3/8” aggregate pervious concrete is very flat, and is considered an acceptable pavement for ADA applications, these clients wanted something smoother. We offered them PerkTop, a fine grain permeable topper that is added as a final surface to pervious concrete in thicknesses of 3/8”-1/2”. They liked it!

   While we were there installing, we discovered pervious asphalt in the wild. During the pandemic they had completed the office and redid the parking lot with many patches of permeable asphalt dotted throughout the asphalt parking lot. It was in the best shape of any permeable asphalt I had ever seen. It turned out, that despite being 2.5 years old, it had received very little traffic until this year. Perhaps because of the limited traffic it was holding up well. We tested it, and sure enough it drained.

   The point is, permeable asphalt is a possibility for permeable or pervious paving. It tends not to hold up in the long term, and, by virtue of its shorter useful life, must be redone regularly. If the regular re-paving is factored into the upfront price, pervious concrete and pervious asphalt would be comparable. If you are selling your building in the short term, pervious asphalt might be a good choice to check a permitting box. If you are making a capital investment in your portfolio, your community or your home, consider making it a solid one with pervious concrete.

Designing with Pervious Concrete: Under drains, if you must

We get great questions all the time from design professionals trying to better understand pervious concrete and if it is the right material for their project. One aspect that has come up time and again is the question of under drains. Do you need them? It depends - but not that often.

Under drains come into designs when either the soil has a very very low infiltration rate, or there is a sustained slope, and under drains are a part of the base prep, with check dams. We will touch on those another day. If you have that question now, please call us and we would be happy to discuss your case, specifically. The other time is when they are already there, and we are doing a Low Impact Development Retrofit.

Whether they are already there or to be incorporated into the new project, under drains can be a great tool or they can be redundant. This article discusses under drains once they have been selected for a project and the make them as useful as possible.

To back up a bit, pervious concrete is often selected for a project when infiltration of stormwater is a requirement. The point is to allow the water to absorb into the soil, and forego official channels, like storm drains. (see what I did there? :) So, if we put under drains in, like in the picture A, the perforated pipe carries the water away before it has sufficient time to absorb into the soil. It really undoes any watershed benefit by preventing water from absorbing.

In picture B, by placing the underdrain at the top of the permeable aggregate base, and orienting the perforations as high as possible, it allows the water to absorb into the subgrade. When, and if, the water accumulates in the permeable aggregate base, once it reaches the perforations, it will be carried away. That is a far better implementation, making best use of the permeable hardscape you have, and preventing any over flow, if that is a risk. Questions? Comments? Call us, we love to discuss pervious concrete design.

Thanks,

Lauren

Pervious Concrete ADA Ramps in Santa Barbara

We have heard that there was a rumor around that ADA ramps can’t be done in pervious concrete. That is not at all accurate. Have have done several, and here is a wonderful example in Santa Barbara at the Sansom Clinic.

The West Coast Pervious Concrete Conference is ON!

Also known as the Pervious Roast West 2020, we will be convening the evening of April 17, with full days of presentations and demos April 18 and 19. We will be having this shindig at Cal Poly Pomona, with presentations at the conference center, and we are working to have afternoon pouring demos onsite. We will be forthcoming with accommodation information and further details soon.

If you would like to present your research, field experience or a new product or piece of equipment, we want to see it! Please email me at Lauren(at)pacificpervious.com. We look forward to seeing YOU at Cal Poly Pomona April 17-19 for the West Coast Pervious Concrete Conference (or Pervious Roast West 2020).

Awards Season has begun!

The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the Metro Division 4 Permeable Concrete Pavement Pilot Project that we completed earlier this year with the Outstanding SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING Project project award! We are so proud to have been a part of that project. Below you can see a brief clip we took during the downpour in late January. It was flowing from the larger 2/3 of the site onto the pervious concrete in the last 1/3 of the site which is now pervious concrete. It was a great design with a great infiltration rate!

The project was 40,000 sq ft of pervious concrete, 8.5” thick over 16” of crushed rock base. Fantastic!

LID Retrofits with Pervious Concrete

You can see the Double Tree Hotel close to the pervious, in case you are looking for it the next time you go to the Citadel.

More and more we are seeing existing project that need a little or a lot of infiltration - and pervious concrete is just the material for the job! Pervious concrete is fast to install and rugged to withstand all the wheel turns, trash trucks and excitement of a busy parking lot. Here are some photos of a pervious concrete retrofit that we installed in 2014. 4 years in and it is still holding up very well.

Here you can see a close up of the pervious - nice even surface, consistent voids, good paste distribution.

This is an orientation shot, should you go looking for pervious at your next shopping trip.

Polished Pervious with Color at Millwork!

Millwork, a beautiful event space in Downtown Los Angeles features an 1000 sqft polished pervious courtyard to host events, from product launches to weddings.  This unique flooring looks almost Terrazzo like, with the Davis Salmon color used and the native local aggregates.

You can see more photos and learn more about this beautiful space at their website, here.

Detention + Parking with Pervious Concrete

LID at its finest - a doctor's office in Santa Monica is having their parking lot do double duty by placing pervious concrete atop a gravel detention bed.  The pervious pavement system is infiltrating surface flow from the lot as well as adjacent roof runoff, piped in underground. As you can see in the first photos, the asphalt parking lot is sloped to the pervious.

What you can't see is that they are piping in adjacent roof runoff underneath, using a detail similar to this one:

While directing surface flow from asphalt to pervious concrete is not necessarily the best design choice* it does do the job well of meeting LID requirements and the value requirements of the project. *The reason why it is not the best design choice is because the asphalt tends to clog the pervious over time. Sticky fines from the asphalt migrate in the surface flow to the pervious concrete which filters them out. Sticky asphalt fines are not possible to remove from pervious concrete so end up slowly encroaching on the pervious, reducing the available infiltration surface. Depending on the local rain fall, the frequency of asphalt resurfacing and the slope of the asphalt/speed of the surface flow it can very well take years if not decades to meaningfully impact the infiltration rate of the pervious concrete.

Architectural Pervious Concrete for a Malibu Residence

A private Malibu residence commissioned 22,500 sq ft of polished pervious concrete for their driveway, motor court and parking areas in 2015. The whole site was designed by renowned architect Tadao Ando, and the home is perched atop the Malibu cliffs, over looking the Pacific. We have a close up photo of the polished perivous, which exposes the aggregate. By virtue of the polished, however, this is a flat, rather then a textured look. Sawed score lines were used to enhance and maintain the planes of the design, lending to a very cohesive feel. Beeson Pervious Concrete won an ACI award for this project, due to the precision of the pour and the success of the installation. Because this is a private residence, going by the project is not possible.

Up close, you can see the polished surface- the native aggregates in the mix are exposed to show their colors. One can choose custom aggregate and even add color to really make it unique.

Pervious Driveway along an Alley

More and more, we are seeing these little infiltration strips of driveways along the rear access alleys of homes and buildings here in Southern California. Here is the backside of a home in Santa Monica on 10th street. This is about 250 sq ft of classic pervious concrete, 6 inches thick, suitable for car and light truck traffic.

As you can see the light pavement is a lovely foil for the dark wall and angular accents. The pervious concrete's finish falls in line with the modern aesthetic of this home.

Decorative Pervious at the Chino Hills Wetland!

We installed the pervious parking lot here at the Chino Hills Wetland Area as an example of beautiful, palette pleasing pervious parking. Say that 5 times fast! We took color cues from the pavers which were at the center of the parking area. We applied this color as a stain. It is also possible to do integral color. Below are a couple more angles of the whole project.

The Chino Hills Wetland Area chose pervious concrete because they were protecting their delicate native ecosystem. By using pervious concrete, and not asphalt, they will have a low- maintenance, durable parking lot for years to come. Unlike asphalt, pervious concrete requires no regular sealing and resurfacing, is not made with oil products and has no odor, and leaves no trace in hot weather.

We left the far right panel unstained at the top to show the contrast of surface stained concrete and non-stained. As you can see, in this case, adding the color enhanced the project. It is always possible to add color, either integral (a more durable color choice) or stain (a more affordable choice with more flexibility). Contact us to discuss the details of your project!

Elegant Pervious Driveway for Mission Style Home

This beautifully maintained home is in West Los Angeles. We poured this driveway a couple years ago, and this is a good example of colored pervious concrete adding to overall palette of a home. You can see the pervious is surrounded by traditional concrete, to frame in nicely.

Pervious Parking at the YMCA in Los Angeles

In 2012 we installed i900 sq. ft. of pervious concrete around the back of the YMCA on 28th Street in Los Angeles. After 5 years it is still holding up well. You can see there have been a few drips from parked cars, which means it is getting used!

The other good news about those oil drips is that they are not contributing to stormwater pollution - pervious concrete provides a habitat for microbes that break down hydrocarbon-based pollutants. As the first filter that water hits on its way back into the aquifer, pervious concrete plays an integral role in a healthy developed watershed.

A Pavement Experiment: Pervious Concrete Gutters

A Pavement Experiment: Pervious Concrete Gutters

Ventura County Government Offices needed to fix some flooding in their parking lot, so they added a pervious concrete retrofit near storm drain inlets and along some gutter areas. It is holding up well, and they are happy with it.

Generally, pervious concrete gutters along side a traditional impervious hardscape area is not a recommended design. Pervious concrete does not have an infiltration rate of a drain or filter, consequently, these applications can become clogged by debris much faster.

Best design practice: impervious area to pervious area ratio is ideal not greater then 2:1.

Pervious Concrete Parking for Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara!

Laguna Blanca, a pristine private school tucked into the hills of Hope Ranch, just outside of Santa Barbara, California, commissioned pervious concrete as part of their comprehensive landscape improvement project. They used integral color to enhance the look and feel of the pervious, creating a cohesive natural palate that flatters the Spanish Mission style campus.  They used pervious concrete in the driving lanes, some parking spaces, and through the bus paths. You can see in the photos below that this parking lot gets used daily. Bus traffic, cars, activity vans, maintenance vehicles - this installation was installed in 2013 and it still looks beautiful!

Pervious concrete sweeps around as the drive isle with porous pavers filled with gravel are the parking stalls.

Whole Life Church Expands their parking with Pervious Concrete

In our continuing series of our installed work in Southern California, we now go to Santa Clarita where we installed 30,000 sq ft of pervious concrete for the Church's expanding parking lot. They have EV charging stations and some lovely greenery to add color to their mixed pavement parking. They used pervious concrete for the parking stalls and asphalt for the driving lanes. While that is not an ideal design, the high ratio of pervious concrete to asphalt will allow this paveemnt to drain for many years.

You can see how expansive the parking is. This is in addition to the Church's original parking. With the beautiful drought-resistant plantings, it makes the walk to the front door a lovely stroll.

In the distance above you can see the Church building.

Pervious Concrete at the War Memorial in Upland Keeps the Trees Green

In the sunny wilds of Upland we poured just over 3200 sq ft of pervious concrete in 2015. It surrounds a peaceful flowing water feature memorial. The pervious concrete allows the green citrus trees to thrive, as you can see below. As part of the project, Beeson Pervious was able to sponsor a bench to sit and enjoy the space. Next time you are in Upland, swing by - 460 North Euclid Ave.