Investing in a new driveway for your Newton, MA, is a big decision. Adding to the many choices—the color, the style, the texture—is whether you should opt for permeable driveway pavers. Once you know the many reasons to go with this choice, you may be unlikely to go with a traditional paver for your driveway.
Avoiding Standing Water
Permeable pavers have extra spacing and special materials for enabling water to easily seep through the surface of the driveway to the underlying soil. This helps to keep standing water off your driveway. The result is a safer and dryer driveway that provides better traction for vehicles. It also reduces water spray and reflections from lighting that can be inhibiting to driving at night time.
Related: 5 Things to Keep in Mind When Choosing Driveway Pavers in the Lexington, MA, Area
Reduced Chances of Flooding
Flash floods due to high volumes of rain are a real risk in urban areas, and permeable pavers are a great way to minimize their effects. By allowing water to assimilate into the soil, the permeable pavers in your driveway reduce the amount of water entering the stormwater drainage system and potentially overwhelming them—an effect that would normally result in standing water and potential flooding.
Water running off the surface after rains is also a prime source of introducing soil and debris into the stormwater drainage system. This radically reduces the efficiency of the drainage system and causing potential blockages that can flood entire sections of your property. By utilizing permeable pavers, you can reduce this risk manyfold.
Maintaining the Water Table
Your new permeable paver driveway would be great for the ecological welfare of your property. For starters, it lets water into the underlying soil, thereby completing the natural water cycle. This helps replenish the water table under your property, an important effect for keeping your plants and trees healthy as well as any wells and groundwater sources you utilize.
Controlling Pollutants
Your permeable paver driveway can act as a natural filter for rain and irrigation water as it assimilates into the groundwater, keeping it free from pollutants and suitable for home use. The pavers, underlying aggregate, and soil filter out heavy metals, salt and oil residues, preventing them from becoming a part of the water system and exposing them to natural bacteria in the soil that can break them down.
Reducing the Heat Island Effect
Traditionally paved driveways are one of the biggest contributors to the heat island effect around your property. They capture heat and remain hot for extended periods, radiating heat into the air and heating up water from precipitation as it runs off the surface. This can reduce the impact of temperature rises on aquatic life in waterways where the water eventually drains.
Permeable driveway pavers counteract the heat island effect as the water draining through them keeps them cool. This helps lowers the temperature around your property to more comfortable levels while also reducing the ecological impact.
Related: 5 Driveway Pavers for Modern Landscapes in Belmont, MA
Wide Range of Aesthetics
In addition to all these practical advantages, permeable pavers offer the same amazing versatility in designs, colors and textures that you expect from modern concrete pavers. This allows you to craft your driveway to your preferences and adapt your design seamlessly to your home’s exterior. The wide range of colors is also great for creating contrasting elements in accents and borders to give your permeable driveway a custom look.
