Chamblee is next door, and it’s where the water starts
Our shop is on the Dunwoody side of the Chamblee line, so Huntley Hills, Sexton Woods and Keswick Village are the closest neighborhoods we serve. Chamblee also sits, in the city’s own words, “at the top of two critically impacted watersheds”: Nancy Creek begins just north of the city and Bubbling Creek starts inside it. Water that lands on a Chamblee roof is on its way to Brookhaven and Buckhead within the hour, and the yards it crosses on the way are the ones we get called to.
Everything we run is electric and solar-charged. No exhaust, no engine noise, no gas can on the trailer.
Call (404) 369-0989 or book a free site visit.
What we build in Chamblee
Paver and stone patios. Sexton Woods and Huntley Hills are 1950s and ’60s ranches, many renovated or rebuilt, and the back yards are flat enough for big patios without a lot of wall work. Decks always need a permit in Chamblee; patios usually don’t. Paver Patios
Front walks, steps and stoops. The original concrete walks in Sexton Woods have heaved on the clay. Paver and bluestone walks, stoop steps, and driveway aprons. A driveway replacement or enlargement needs the city’s land disturbance pre-screen; we file it.
Retaining walls. Chamblee’s rule is simple: 48 inches or taller needs a permit with footing and final inspections; under 48 inches doesn’t. Block, boulder, concrete. Retaining Walls
Drainage. French drains, underground downspout runs, catch basins, dry creek beds, and regrading. Because Chamblee is upstream of everyone, the city’s sustainability plan leans hard on green infrastructure; permeable pavers and rain gardens are often the right answer here and we build both. Drainage and French Drains
Planting. Natives that handle a Chamblee summer: oakleaf hydrangea, fothergilla, Piedmont azalea, coneflower, little bluestem, pink muhly. We’ve installed more than 900 native plants across the north side of the Perimeter.
Quiet electric lawn care. Weekly and bi-weekly service, fertilization, weed control and pest control, organic option for each.
Commercial grounds. The office and light-industrial properties along Peachtree Boulevard and around PDK, Antique Row storefronts, church campuses, HOA common areas. Commercial Maintenance
Chamblee yards, specifically
Flat lots, slow clay. Most of Chamblee’s older neighborhoods are gently graded, which means water doesn’t run off so much as sit. The fix is usually downspouts underground plus a French drain to the street or a dry well, not a wall.
Annexed neighborhoods. Huntley Hills came into the city in 2010 and Beverly Hills and Beverly Woods in 2013. Permit rules are the city’s now, not DeKalb County’s, which trips up homeowners who remember the old process.
Permits. Fences (including repairs involving posts), decks, driveway work, sheds over 200 square feet and walls 48 inches and up all need permits; specimen tree removal or more than five non-specimen trees in a year needs one too. The Development Department is at 770-986-5010.
Airport and rail. Properties near PDK and the MARTA line have their own noise; ours won’t add to it.
What Chamblee clients say
“We hired Oak Avenue Landscaping for landscape design, plant installation, and artificial turf installation. Lloyd and his team were professional, friendly, and skilled.” – Kae G., Atlanta (Google)
“Our back yard now feels like a completely different space. He was very responsive and prompt, and helped us tackle some issues outside the original scope of the job.” – Kevin B. (Google)
How a Chamblee project actually runs
The first visit is free and it is a walk round the yard with a notepad. On a Chamblee lot the constraints show up fast: how much room there is, whether a machine can get to the back at all, which trees are carrying the shade, and where the water goes when it rains hard. You get a written scope from that with the work broken into parts.
Then the permits, and Chamblee has more of them than people expect on a small project. A retaining wall 48 inches or taller needs one, with a footing inspection and a final inspection. Decks always need one. So does a fence if posts are being set, including a replacement or a repair. Replacing or enlarging a driveway triggers a land disturbance pre-screen. A shed over 200 square feet needs a permit of its own. And removing a specimen tree, or more than five non-specimen trees in a year, is its own application. We identify the set at design stage and file what is needed rather than finding out halfway through.
On site we work in an order that does not need undoing: water first, then the shape of the ground, then the hard surfaces, then planting, then lighting. Access usually sets the schedule here more than the work does. If everything has to come through a side gate by hand rather than on a machine, that is days, and we would rather tell you at the site visit than discover it on the Tuesday.
What it is like having our crew in your yard
Everything we run is battery powered and charges from a solar trailer. On lots this size the machine is working about thirty feet from someone else’s kitchen window, so no generator idling all day and no fuel cans on the driveway is the difference between a week your neighbours barely register and one they remember.
We will not oversell it. A plate compactor and a masonry saw are loud, and there is no quiet version of either. What is gone is the constant engine drone in between.
The other half is what we leave behind. Chamblee sits at the top of two critically impacted watersheds, and the city has been putting real money into that, including the Fish Bolt Park stormwater project on Chamblee Tucker Road. On a private lot the equivalent moves are permeable paving instead of solid, downspouts collected and taken somewhere sensible, and a planted low corner that holds a storm for an hour instead of sending it straight to the street. We plant from the Georgia Native Plant Society Piedmont list, which handles our clay and our summers without much help. Under the Georgia Water Stewardship Act outdoor watering runs 4 p.m. to 10 a.m., with new plantings exempt for their first thirty days and drip and hand-watering exempt any time, so new beds go on drip wherever it makes sense.
Questions Chamblee homeowners ask us
Do I need a permit for a retaining wall in Chamblee? 48 inches or taller, yes, with a footing inspection and a final. Shorter than that, no.
Do I need a permit for a patio? Usually not for a ground-level patio. Decks always need one. If you’re replacing or widening a driveway, the city wants a land disturbance pre-screen first.
Can you do permeable pavers? Yes. They’re often the best answer in Chamblee because of where the city sits in the watershed, and they don’t count against you the way a solid slab does.
Can you take out a tree? Specimen trees and more than five smaller trees in a year need a city permit. We’ll tell you which category your tree falls in.
Is electric equipment strong enough for the job? Yes. Commercial battery tools for compaction, cutting and excavation; the trailer’s solar panels recharge them between jobs.
Do you serve all of Chamblee? Yes: Huntley Hills, Sexton Woods, Keswick Village, Dresden East, Beverly Hills, the Peachtree Boulevard corridor and downtown.
Nearby
Chamblee shares a line with Dunwoody, where we are based, so a Huntley Hills morning and a Dunwoody afternoon are an ordinary day. Same story in Brookhaven, Doraville, Sandy Springs and Peachtree Corners. For the detail on a single service, see drainage, French drains and grading, eco-friendly lawn care or fertilization, weed and pest control.
Patios have their own Chamblee page, with the 48-inch retaining wall threshold, the driveway pre-screen, and the case for permeable paving in a city sitting at the top of two impaired watersheds: paver patio installation in Chamblee.
A lot of Huntley Hills and Sexton Woods houses still have the single width drive they were built with, which fits one 1962 car and not two of anything made since. Widening one here starts with the city pre-screen and, more often, with the tree standing beside it. That work is set out on our steps, walkways and driveways page.
Book a site visit
(404) 369-0989 · info@oakavelandscape.com · book a free site visit