Sidewalk or Path
Want to know how much base rock you need under your pervious concrete pavement? We've done all the calculations for you! Designed with low infiltration soils, like Class C & D, in mind these design tables allow you to quickly size the infiltration bed underneath your pervious concrete. Tables feature calculations for infiltration rates as low as 0.025 inches per hour!
Read MoreIt's April, so it's the perfect time for some spring cleaning! Time to clean out those dusty pervious concrete specifications and design details you have laying around, and replace them with something new and fresh. We have released new updates on all the favorites!
Visit our Resources Section and you can download the latest the industry has to offer
Specifications
Typical Design details
Performance Data Sheet
To improve traffic flow at a busy intersection in Elk Grove, the City turned a four way intersection into a round-about. But it's not just any round-about, the new intersection also included features to enhance pedestrian safety and pleasure. Among those features is the new pervious concrete pedestrian and bike path that encircles the round-about. See more by watching the virtual fly-over video.
Read MoreDuring the last winter rain storm of 2016 David went to visit some of our work at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, CA. It was really rainy the day he visited, so in this episode you can really see the difference in how stormwater is handled by an impervious pavement versus a pervious pavement.
Read MoreEl Niño brought us a gift this winter, some much needed rain! The most recent storm allowed us to finally bring you another in our Stormwater Sleuthing Video series. This episode features a real-life demonstration of the performance of pervious concrete at our recently completed project at El Camino Park in Palo Alto, as compared to traditional asphalt and concrete.
Read MoreThe City of Pleasanton is trying to solve two issues they are having along their Arroyo Mocho Trail, flooding and maintenance costs. The project represents a testing site for the city to study and compare surface performance and maintenance costs of asphalt, decomposed granite and pervious concrete. Pervious concrete was specifically installed in an area that is prone to flooding. We, at BAPC, are pretty confident they will find similar results that other cities have when it comes to the high performance and low maintenance costs of pervious concrete.
Read MoreAnother Bay Area city has endorsed pervious concrete. The City of Palo Alto utilized pervious concrete at the newly renovated El Camino Park. What's better than that? They also offer pervious concrete rebates!
Read MoreIf you haven't been lucky enough to experience the renovated Arana Gulch Trail in Santa Cruz yet, you are in luck! Thanks to a video shot by Greg McPheeters, of People Power, you can ride the trail from anywhere.
We are so happy that people are excited about the new trail and are sharing their experiences of it. If you have your own Arana Gulch trail photos to share we would love to see them.
The Grand Opening of Boeddeker Park is on December 10, 2014 from 1-4pm. The park is located in the Tenderloin at 246 Eddy Street in San Francisco. Why are we so excited about this park? Because most of the hardscape is our Fine Grain Pervious Concrete and it looks gorgeous!
We hope you swing by to check it out, either on the 10th or sometime after. It has exercise equipment for adults, play equipment for children and seating and grass for general playing. It is a lovely open oasis in the middle of the Tenderloin. For more information about this park click here to visit San Francisco’s Recreation & Parks page.
....for park multi-use trails!!
Revisited the trail in March 2015.
While we know pervious concrete is a great multi-use trail material, the City of Santa Cruz spent years seeking the perfect trail material before they settled on pervious concrete for the Arana Gulch multi-use trail project. They needed something that was safe and non-slip in all weather conditions, accessible for wheelchairs in all weather, protected water quality, was permeable, low maintenance, and looks the part- clearly pervious concrete!
The City agreed that pervious concrete met all their needs and then some. Below is the list of features they considered in selecting pervious concrete:
We don’t need to quote them further, read their original blog post for more details. Great work, Santa Cruz!! Even more great they hired BAPC to install it. Above you can see a photo of the Broadway Brommer Arana Gulch path that we installed. If you use the Arana Gulch Broadway Brommer Multi-Use path, send us your photos, and we would love to post them!
We are excited to announce that we, at Bay Area Pervious Concrete, hold an Evolution Architectural Pervious Concrete Certificate of Endorsement from Evolution Paving to install their Architectural Fine Pervious Concrete sidewalk mix! We have worked with Evolution paving on a project in Sonoma, more photos here, installing the fine sidewalk mix, and we have it down - pun intended.
Please contact us for pricing and references so that we can install for you soon!
Recently, maintaining pervious concrete has come up several times in a week, prompting this blog post. The good news is that this conversation is happening. The bad news is that some people who are not on board with pervious are using an ill-informed maintenance opinion to shape their judgement. We here at Bay Area Pervious Concrete would like to clear up a few of the misconceptions around maintenance.
Firstly, we have found the relevance of maintenance is tied directly to the porosity of the slab itself. A healthy infiltration rate for a slab of pervious concrete is 250-1000 inches per square foot per hour. That ensures that even if the slab was 99% clogged, and the 5 year storm event was 3 inches in 24 hours (as we have here in the Bay Area), that slab would easily be able to absorb that entire storm. So at 99% clogged, the slab would take in 2.5 inches - 10 inches of stormwater per hour per square foot!
Secondly, here are three helpful resources to help with installing a good slab, maintaining it and the fixing a worst case scenario:
1) In order to make sure you get your healthy infiltration rates, an experienced and qualified contractor is required. We have performance based specs that you may review, so that you can be sure to get a good contractor and get a great pervious concrete installation! We also have a BAPC PolishedTM Pervious Spec that we will send at your request.
2) Regular maintenance that can be done, if there is a budget and a desire for a plan. We have put together a maintenance manual that we give to clients at their request when we finish work for them. This gives an idea what you can anticipate, allows one to set up a maintenance schedule, and has resources to call if clogging does occur.
3) Pervious concrete can recover porosity after clogging over years as shown from a research paper from Florida that came out a few years ago. The paper shows several slabs of unmaintained pervious ranging in age from 6 to 20 years old that were able to recover significant infiltration after a pressure washing, vacuuming or a combination of both - after YEARS of neglect. So, no maintenance, no problem!
Do you have any unanswered questions about maintenance and pervious concrete? Submit them here, and we may add them to this post!
San Jose’s newest park features a colored pervious concrete path going around the park! And it is finally open! Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program honored the City of San José with an award for Commodore Park’s Site Design and Low Impact Development for Storm Water Pollution. The award recognizes the park's low-impact development features that are helping to protect water quality by filtering stormwater through plants and soil, while allowing stormwater to infiltrate into the ground to help replenish groundwater.
Time to load up the family, grab the frisbee and explore this great new space. It has children’s playground equipment, adult’s exercise equipment, picnic areas and a grassy expanse, all accessed by ADA friendly pervious concrete. It is a lovely space to spend the day.
If you head out there, please send us photos of you enjoying the park! We will post them here! :)
White Hill Middle School up in Marin County is the first school to put in polished pervious concrete! WRNS Studio designed it in the main courtyard area between classrooms as well the shaded amphitheater style steps, shown below.
The finishing touches were just getting completed as teachers were prepping classrooms in anticipation of classes starting. It was very exciting!
We were able to get this fantastic design installed with the help of a dedicated team of design professionals. Joel Williams and Pauline Souza from WRNS Studios were invaluable as design advocates for pervious concrete from the beginning of the project. Mike Hastings, from Sherwood Engineering, was the civil on the project, and his collaboration and cooperation on the technical aspects enabled us keep momentum going. We look forward to working with both of these firms in the future, for more pervious concrete projects!!
And here is our favorite shot - a close up of the nice tidy finish, and the subtle color variations in the polished finish the school administrators were looking for.
As the landscaping grows in, and the people move in, the pervious concrete hardscapes just get better looking! Check out the below photos for a more updated view of Evolution Paving’s Architectural Fine Pervious Concrete that we placed at the Valley Oaks Co-Housing project in Sonoma.
Tell us what you think! Do these look like livable hardscapes to you? Honestly, I just want to pet that puppy! :)
The Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing has a new home in the Melvin Calvin Laboratory building on UC Berkeley’s campus. And skirting the southwest edge is a new polished pervious concrete path! The next time you find yourself on campus, I hope you bring some water and pour some out on their new pervious path!
This is where the path is adjacent to Optometry Lane.
Harrison Park, a tiny oasis in the residential area of Sausalito boasts one of the only playgrounds in the city, as well as a pervious concrete path! Take a look around and the next time you are there, check out Harrison Park in the hills of Sausalito!!
Have you been? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below:
The Hyatt wanted a new look and feel for two areas on either side of a walkway that connected the north entrance and the parking garage. They wanted to rip out the existing plants and replace it with a usable patio space. They also wanted pervious concrete - so they called us!
After we installed the Polished Pervious® concrete, we scored it, completing the look. The Hyatt put out this sleek and modern furniture, turning this previously unusable corner into a nice place to take a break! Below is the larger area, to the east of the pathway.
