Wet snow is a load, not a pretty cap
We still see new seat walls in Highlands Ranch and Lakewood set on the exact pad where last March's wet snow sat until May. Front Range storms are heavy. That pile is not powder. It is a dirty berg that soaks the cap, stains the face, and then freeze-thaw lifts the first course.
A wall that looked finished in August is a melt dam by February. Water runs behind the wall into the patio joint. Weston Landscape & Design will not pretend residential snow removal can dance around a wall that was built in the stack zone.
Last year's pile is the only honest site plan
Send a April photo if you have one. If you do not, we look at the dirty corner, the crushed turf, and the stain on the fence. That is where the loader put it. A new wall there owns every future storm.
Outdoor living and winter service have to share one drawing. Measure the garage turn and the school walk. If the only place a wet pile can legally sit is that corner, the wall moves or the pile needs a new home first. Call (303) 944-7495 before the mason's sand shows up.
HOA lots in Centennial often have one legal stack. Lose it and the next storm sits on the drive or on the sidewalk. Neither is allowed as a plan.
Melt behind a wall is a patio problem
Wet snow against a seat wall does not stay as snow. It becomes a sheet of water with nowhere to go but the patio. Joints open. The base saturates. We have reset panels that were a year old because the wall was a dam.
Do not hide a drain behind a wall that will be buried in snow for three months. The inlet ices. Pair this with irrigation so drip at the wall face is off before the first sticky storm. A zone that still soaks the cap in November is how we grow ice lenses in the joints.
Landscape design can still give you a seat. It may face a different view than the old pile corner. That is cheaper than a rebuild in May.
Write the stack and the wall as one approval
Before we build, we want the pile location, the blade path, and the wall footprint on one sketch. If a separate drainage issue shows up at that corner, it gets its own line.
Send the winter photo and the proposed wall. Contact Weston. Related notes live on the blog. We would rather move the wall on paper than pull stained block in April.