You've been looking for a nice wooden bench for your backyard because you have a vision of putting it under that big oak tree and drinking your morning coffee there on the weekends. After a while, you finally find exactly what you wanted, and you bring it home. It looks even better than the picture you had in your mind, and for 6 wonderful months, you've been enjoying your morning coffee there.
Then, one day, you notice the bench looks… Fat.
The legs are swollen like you've been feeding it the saltiest chips in the world. And is that orange tinge on those screws? It looks like they're rusting. What happened? It's an outdoor bench, shouldn't it work outdoors?
The problem is that your bench met Charleston's weather. And your bench… I don't like it.
How to Tell Your Backyard Work With Charleston Weather
Wait for a few hours after a heavy storm has passed.
What do you see? Is the ground full of puddles? Are you squishing your way through soggy grass? If you are, that’s kind of a problem.
Charleston gets a lot of rain, and with the flat ground, the water has nowhere to go if the drainage isn't good (or if it's non-existent).
Here's how to know if your backyard isn't doing its job well.
Your Deck Starts Looking Worn Too Fast
Decks should look practically brand new for quite some time, so if yours is relatively new and it's looking beat up, something's wrong. Look at your deckboards in particular and see if there's any warping or cracking.
Also, do they feel kind of soft when you walk over them?
None of this is normal aging.
In Charleston, wood goes through many wet-dry cycles, which means it's always swelling and shrinking. And if the materials in the deck are cheap, they break down really fast.
Luckily, a good contractor can take care of this for you. Charleston has a few truly excellent ones, but you can also find good ones around the area – like a good, reliable deck builder Greenville SC residents would rely on (e.g., Crafted Decks & Porches). But you can also find ones at Myrtle Beach, Clemson, Aiken, Lexington… Pretty much all over the state.
The Space Is Unusable by Noon
Can you sit in your backyard at 2 P.M. in July without feeling like you're being baked alive? If you can't, then the design of your backyard is way off.
There could be many causes to this, from not having shade to materials that trap heat, zero breeze, and so on.
The summers in Charleston are long, and they can be suffocating, so unless you have some sort of shade, there's no chance you'll use your backyard during summer. Which means your backyard gets hardly any use for half the year, and that's such a waste.
Mold and Mildew Keep Coming Back
Mold likes moisture and still air, and you'll get plenty of that in Charleston backyards. Check the shady corners or the fence under the stairs of your deck. Do you see any dark splotches? If you do, you can try to scrub them off, and you might even be successful. The problem is, they'll come right back after the next rain.
If you keep getting mold, then you have an issue with ventilation, or you have a spot that never gets enough (if any) sunlight.
You can clean it until your fingers fall off, but that won't help. The only thing that will change the airflow.
Metal Parts Rust Quickly
Look at the screws, gate hinges, and railings. Is there any paint flaking off? Do you see orange streaks?
That means the salt air is eating the metal.
Charleston's coast is a huge plus for many of its residents, but it means that salt hangs in the air, and the wind blowing it around makes matters even worse. When the salt gets mixed with humidity, standard hardware corrodes.
Unfortunately, there's a lot more to rust than just its ugly appearance. It weakens the metal, which means your deck and gate can get weak. The only solution to this is to use marine-grade stainless steel.
Bugs Party!
Bugs? Eww. Right? Who wants bugs attending your home party or your friends' and/or family gathering?
Imagine having a couple of friends over, and all you keep doing is dodging moths or beetles that are flying into your face, or slapping mosquitoes every minute or so. What you want to do outside is enjoy the weather.
Sure, if you had a screened-in porch, that wouldn’t be a problem, but hey, we are where we are, and we have to work with what we’ve got. If you don’t want to be on the bug buffet menu, then going inside might be your only option.
Well, turns out, there are a couple of things you can do.
Look around. If there's standing water from poor drainage, that's the mosquitoes' nursery. Thick bushes give them shade, and since the weather here is warm almost all year, they breed almost all year.
Bug spray isn't the fix for this. You need to fix the drainage and trim your plants.
Conclusion
As you can see, none of these issues means you need to rip everything out and start over. Every single one of them has a pretty easy fix, so if you're still dealing with bugs and corrosion, it's kind of your fault.
If you switch up your setup, the backyard will become comfortable and usable in no time.