Frequently Asked Questions

Look them up yourself at lni.wa.gov/verify — it takes about two minutes. Enter the business name and you’ll see current registration status, bond amount, insurance status, and complaint history. If anything shows “expired,” “suspended,” or comes back with no results, don’t hire them — regardless of how professional the estimate looked. All Pro Landscaping & Construction Services LLC is a registered Washington State contractor; verify us the exact same way.

Yes, and they cover three different risks. Licensed means the state has registered the business to legally perform construction work. Bonded means a surety bond can reimburse you if the contractor fails to complete the job or violates the contract. Insured means liability coverage protects your property, and workers’ comp protects you if someone is injured on your job site — without it, an injury on your property can become your problem, not theirs.

A price 30% or more below every other bid, vague line items (“pavers,” “drainage” with no specifics), no mention of a drainage plan, or pressure to sign and pay a large deposit immediately. A legitimate proposal names materials by size and type, itemizes the scope, and gives you a realistic timeline. The savings in a lowball bid almost always come out of base depth and drainage — the two things that decide whether the work is still standing in five years.

Yes. General liability insurance and workers’ compensation are conditions of our Washington State contractor registration — coverage you can verify independently at lni.wa.gov/verify before we start any work.

Our own crew. The same sequencing and drainage-first discipline we use on commercial and public-sector sites carries over to a residential project — a consistency that’s harder to guarantee once work is handed off to subcontractors you’ve never met.

We identify what your specific project and city require, and coordinate the submittal and engineering where a permit applies. You’re not left decoding SDCI, Bellevue, or Snohomish County code on your own. The exact scope we handle is confirmed at consultation, since it depends on the project.

Workmanship is warrantied, and the specifics depend on the scope — a retaining wall’s structural warranty is a different conversation than sod establishment guidance. You’ll get it in writing at proposal, before any deposit changes hands, not after.

Simple projects — a fence, a small patio, a sod install — often run just one to a few days of on-site work. Anything requiring a permit is usually gated by permit review time, not construction time. Seattle’s own target is 2–4 weeks for simple/medium residential permits and 8–12 weeks for complex ones, and real-world timelines frequently run longer than the target. You get a realistic phase-by-phase schedule at proposal — not an optimistic one.

Not for most of it — but we’ll tell you which days matter, typically the initial walkthrough and the final handoff. Site access, gate codes, and keeping kids or pets clear of equipment are all covered before work starts.

King & Snohomish County — Seattle, Bellevue, Everett, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Bothell, Edmonds, Redmond, Kenmore, Mill Creek, Mukilteo, Shoreline, Snohomish, and Brier by name, plus most of the area in between. If you’re just outside that list, ask — proximity to a job we’re already running nearby sometimes makes it workable.

We build it; we don’t mow it, weed it, or maintain it afterward. No maintenance contracts, no recurring visits, no upsell to a lawn-care plan — you get a finished, handed-off project and clear care instructions for anything living (new sod, new plantings). If you’re looking for an ongoing lawn service, that’s a different kind of company than us, and we’ll say so upfront instead of taking the job anyway.

Height, surcharge (whether something is holding up a load), and location decide it far more often than the project type does. A 3-foot garden wall usually doesn’t need a permit; a 3-foot wall holding up a driveway does, because it’s carrying a load. An 8-foot fence and a 4-foot retaining wall use completely different rulebooks. There’s no single answer that covers every project — which is exactly why checking beats guessing.

Plan for 2–4 weeks on simple residential permits and 8–12 weeks on complex ones — and real-world timelines often run longer than the official target. Seattle’s own permit dashboard shows actual applicant experience frequently doubling the active-review time it reports. This is usually the real driver of your project’s overall timeline, not the construction itself.

At best, a stop-work order and a retroactive permit application with extra inspection fees. At worst, forced removal, fines, and real complications when you go to sell the house — unpermitted structural work commonly surfaces in home inspections and can delay or derail a sale. It’s rarely worth the shortcut.

Because it probably does. Permit thresholds and setback rules vary by city, sometimes significantly, even between neighboring towns in the same county — Renton’s fence permit trigger is 7 feet where Seattle, Bellevue, and Snohomish County use 8. We confirm the exact rule for your specific address before any design work, rather than assuming your city matches the one down the road.

It’s a designation for steep slope, wetland, or landslide-prone land where extra review is required before you build — and it can prohibit certain structures entirely without a specific exemption. In Seattle, a steep slope is generally defined as rising at least 10 feet over a 25-foot run. If your lot has any noticeable grade change, it’s worth confirming before you get attached to a specific design — we check this as part of every site evaluation.

No — plenty of common projects are exempt. At-grade patios, fences under your city’s height trigger, sod, irrigation, and small open-framed structures under 120 sq ft typically don’t need one. Retaining walls over 4 feet (measured from the footing), taller fences, and anything carrying a load or sitting in an ECA usually do. We tell you which category your project falls into during the first conversation — not after you’ve committed to a design.

Usually one of two causes: the ground is shaped wrong (a grading problem), or water is trapped underground in heavy clay/glacial till (a subsurface problem) — and they need different fixes. Surface puddles that show up in the same spots after every rain are almost always grading. Ground that stays spongy for days after the rain stops is usually subsurface. A downspout dumping at one corner of the house can cause either.

Most King and Snohomish County soil sits on glacial till, which is naturally dense and slow-draining — this isn’t something you did wrong. It holds water long after rain stops and resists root penetration far more than sandier soil found elsewhere in the country. Fixing it usually means correcting drainage and grading first — amending soil that’s still sitting in standing water doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

It depends on the project, but “almost any season” is more true here than in most of the country. Sod and pavers can go in nearly year-round in our mild climate; sod specifically roots fastest in spring and early fall. Retaining walls and drainage work are less weather-sensitive than people assume, since the ground rarely freezes hard enough here to stop excavation. The bigger scheduling factor is usually permit review time, not the calendar.

Mostly it slows base-work scheduling — it doesn’t usually stop a project outright. Excavation and compaction get harder (and are sometimes paused) during a genuinely heavy-rain stretch, but once a wall, patio, or drainage system is finished, it performs identically no matter what season it was built in. We build around the weather; we don’t build around the calendar.

Almost always water, not the material. Fence posts rot at the ground line when footings don’t drain. Retaining walls fail from hydrostatic pressure when drainage behind the wall was skipped or undersized. Patios sink when the base wasn’t excavated or compacted deep enough for our soil. The failure shows up at the surface, but the cause is nearly always what’s underneath it — which is why we treat drainage as structural on every project, not an optional add-on.

Rarely, and not deeply — but “rarely” isn’t “never.” Our freezes are mild compared to most of the country, but real enough to crack irrigation pipes and backflow assemblies that weren’t winterized, and to occasionally affect the top few inches of soil. It’s part of why irrigation systems here are built with proper drain-down points, and a minor factor (not a major one) in construction scheduling.

Shade, moisture, and acidic native soil are the three ingredients moss needs, and Western Washington has all three in abundance. It shows up on lawns, roofs, and hardscape alike. On pavers and patios specifically, it’s a maintenance item after installation rather than something base design prevents entirely — regular cleaning or a paver sealant slows it, but nothing eliminates it permanently in this climate.

Yes — this is a common project for us, and it’s usually more involved than the box makes it look. Most prefab gazebo and pergola kits (Yardistry and similar brands) ship with assembly instructions but no foundation, and manufacturers are explicit that a level, stable base is required to keep the structure square during assembly. We build the base — paver or patio-stone pad, concrete footings, or a tie-in to an existing patio — matched to your specific model’s footprint and your yard’s grade.

Maybe — check the square footage before you assume it doesn’t. Seattle exempts small open-framed structures like arbors under 120 sq ft from permitting, but several popular 12’x14′ and 12’x16′ gazebo models exceed that by a wide margin. Send us the model and we’ll tell you exactly where it lands before you commit to a spot in the yard.

It depends on size and ground condition. A paver or patio-stone base works well for smaller gazebos on level, well-drained ground. Concrete footings (or sonotubes) are the better call on uneven ground, larger structures, or wherever the manufacturer’s footing detail specifically calls for it. We evaluate your model and your site rather than defaulting to one answer for every gazebo.

Often, yes — if the patio is level and the base underneath was built to carry the load. A filled hot tub can weigh 3,000–6,000+ lbs, meaningfully heavier than typical patio furniture, and not every existing patio base was built with that in mind. If you don’t already have a patio, a dedicated paver or gravel pad sized and compacted for the tub’s footprint is a straightforward addition to a hardscape project. (Electrical hookup is a separate trade — we coordinate around it, we don’t do the wiring.)

Gravel, concrete, or pavers all work — the right one depends on the shed’s size and your specific yard. Compacted gravel is the simplest option and drains well. Pavers give a cleaner finished look with similar drainage and are easier to repair if something shifts. Concrete is the most rigid choice for heavier sheds. We grade and build whichever base fits your structure.

We build the pad or level foundation area — not the equipment itself. If you’re installing a playset, in-ground trampoline, or similar product, ground prep (leveling, drainage, safety-surfacing base) is where our scope fits; assembly of the equipment itself typically comes from the manufacturer or retailer’s install service.

Yes — as part of landscape installation and backyard remodel projects. Base preparation matters even more with turf than with sod, since a poorly built base is the single biggest cause of pooling and rippling in our rainy climate. See below for material and safety specifics.

Yes, with a quality product and the right infill — the turf fiber itself isn’t the concern, the infill is. Older turf using recycled crumb-rubber infill is the source of the lead and chemical concerns you may have read about; modern sand, zeolite, and organic infills (cork, coconut fiber) avoid that issue entirely. Ask any installer for lead-free, non-toxic documentation on the specific product before it goes into your yard.

On direct-sun days, yes — that part is true, and worth planning for rather than ignoring. Synthetic turf runs hotter than natural grass in full sun. The fix is site-appropriate product selection (lighter colors and cooling-fiber technology reduce it meaningfully), shade where the yard allows it, and a quick rinse on the hottest days. It’s a real trade-off, not a dealbreaker — and we’ll tell you honestly if your yard’s sun exposure makes it a bigger factor than it would be next door.

Not if it’s built right. The complaint you may have heard — rain “reactivating” pet odor — is almost always a symptom of the wrong infill (plain silica sand) paired with inadequate base drainage, not a flaw in turf itself. Antimicrobial infill and a properly draining base, the same drainage discipline we apply to every project, largely solve it.