Hardscape Home Guide is an independent publication about building and furnishing outdoor spaces. We cover patios, driveways, walkways, retaining walls, concrete flatwork and the furniture that goes on top of them.
We exist because most hardscape information online is either a contractor’s sales page or a content farm that has never poured a slab. Our aim is narrower and more useful: explain the build-up, give the numbers, show the dimensions, and tell you what a project realistically costs in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.
Who writes for us
Daniel Whitfield — Writer and Editor
Daniel writes the majority of our guides. He spent eleven years working alongside landscape and paving crews on residential projects, first as a labourer and later estimating and running small installations, before moving to full-time writing about construction. He holds a construction management diploma and has written about building materials and outdoor living since 2016.
His work on this site focuses on the parts of a project a homeowner has to make a decision about: base depth, drainage fall, paver or concrete, joint spacing, and how to read a quote. He draws the technical figures on this site to scale from published manufacturer and standards data.
Alan Reyes — Technical Reviewer
Alan reviews our construction guides before they publish. He is a licensed hardscape contractor with more than twenty years installing pavers, concrete flatwork, retaining walls and outdoor structures across residential and light commercial work. His review covers base preparation, drainage, structural thicknesses, edge restraint, and whether a detail we have described is one that actually survives a winter.
Alan’s role is to challenge us. When a draft conflicts with what he sees on site, the draft changes. Where a practice differs by region — freeze-thaw depth in Ontario versus coastal California, or the base specification used in Victoria versus Queensland — he flags it and we say so in the text rather than generalising.
Our reviewers are named for a reason
A byline only means something if you can see who it is and what they know. Every guide carries the writer, the technical reviewer and the date it was last reviewed. See our editorial policy.
Our standards
- We name our sources. Guides that make factual claims carry a list of the specifications, standards and manufacturer documents we relied on. See how we research.
- We separate fact from judgement. “The base is 4 in compacted” and “I would not use that pattern on a slope” are different kinds of statement, and we label them differently.
- We date everything. Each guide shows when it was published and when it was last reviewed, because prices and code references go stale.
- We correct in public. Substantive corrections are noted at the foot of the article with the date, not quietly deleted.
- We do not sell rankings. No company can pay to be recommended, to appear in a comparison, or to have a critical sentence removed.
How we are funded
The site is supported by display advertising and by affiliate commissions earned when a reader buys a product or material through a link on our pages. Both are disclosed on the pages where they appear, and neither influences our conclusions. Our affiliate and advertising disclosure explains the mechanics.
Contact
- Editorial and story ideas: [email protected]
- Corrections: [email protected]
- Advertising and partnerships: [email protected]
We are a distributed editorial team and do not operate a public office. See our contact page for response times and what to include.
