Capital Connections
Capital Connections Podcast
Capital Connections
Ep # 9 - Transforming Outdoor Spaces with Justin De Sa of De Sa Construction
Justin De Sa from De Sa Construction discusses transforming outdoor spaces into luxurious living areas while clearing up misconceptions about construction techniques and materials. He emphasizes the importance of using modern methods and materials in hardscaping for durability and aesthetic appeal.
• Introduction to Justin De Sa and De Sa Construction
• Overview of services offered by De Sa Construction
• Clarifying misconceptions about pool and hardscape longevity
• Importance of using clear stone for better construction results
• Discussion on the emotional benefits of outdoor living spaces
• The role of community projects in enhancing well-being
• The significance of personalized design in outdoor spaces
• Information on artificial grass solutions and their benefits
• Closing thoughts on approaching outdoor construction projects
DeSa Construction Group
+16136987383
@desaconstructiongroup
DeSa Construction Group is a full service construction company specializing in building luxury outdoor living spaces. Bring your dream backyard to life for you and your family to enjoy.
Whether you are seeking a pool, interlock, artificial grass, an outdoor cooking are, fire feature, water feature or outdoor sound, we do it all.
This is the Capital Connections Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Samuel Lowe.
Speaker 2:Yes, welcome to the Capital Connections Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Justin DeSaw of DeSaw Construction. Justin, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. Thanks a lot for joining us, justin. I thought maybe can you start off tell our listeners what Dassault Construction is all about and what you guys do.
Speaker 3:So Dassault Construction is a full-service construction company. We started building outdoor living spaces and that kind of snowballed to other places, but for the most part we're doing interlock and landscaping, we install pools and then we do custom enclosures and it's kind of like a just a luxury outdoor living is what we're trying to get people to see that and appreciate their spaces that they have at home, because a lot of us may not be able to afford a cottage or a house in another country, but we do have our backyards and we do maybe even your front yards, and that's something that we can definitely develop and turn into a place that you never want to leave up and turn into a place that you never want to leave, and are there any myths or misconceptions that we could clear up for our listeners regarding pools or hardscapes in general?
Speaker 3:A lot of people will say that hardscapes like are have like a shelf life and it's a very short, finite shelf life. And what the industry has gone and done in the last, let's say, 10 years or so is we've migrated and shifted the way that the foundational layers of the hardscaping has has been built upon. So a long time ago, or let's say a long time 40, 50 years ago when people really started doing interlock and landscaping at home, they were using something called granular A, which is like a fines that are within the crushed stone. You can kind of liken that to flour that you would have in the house and then that goes. So the stone goes from stone dust all the way up to three-quarter clear.
Speaker 3:And where these came from was that these, the manufacturers of all the crushed stone, needed an outlet to get rid of of this like byproduct that they have. So what they done is they geared it towards interlock and landscapers. Well, what that ends up doing, especially in our climate where we have freeze thaw cycles and a heck of a lot of them, is that the dust itself, which are fines, latch onto the water that touches it and then we get these freeze thaw effects. So stuff starts moving up and down and left, right and shaking. So in the last 10, 12 years there's been a let's call it a cultural shift, a building shift to a clear stone so clear stone rocks only.
Speaker 3:So, like a three quarter clear stone and then a bedding layer, is now typically a chip stone, which a whole bunch of different companies call them different things, but essentially it's high performance bedding. Or some call it a quarter chip and there's a whole bunch of different names for it.
Speaker 2:But essentially, we're just is the bedding used to level out your ground. Is that what that is? So the on top of your clear, exactly. So the whole idea is supposed to level out your ground.
Speaker 3:Is that what that is? So the bedding layer On top of your clear, exactly. So the whole idea is you're supposed to level out everything in accordance with the slope that you have of your land. So if you're digging 12 inches down on one end and 18 inches on the other, you're supposed to be following that slope or thereabouts to try and get everything level. And then the bedding layer is the last inch, inch and a half, and that's typically what your either your interlock or your retaining wall sit on.
Speaker 3:So the whole idea with with the clear stone is that it's supposed to create a giant let's call it a giant bathtub. So you're going to add a layer of geotextile fabric that goes down on the native soil and then that's what separates your crushed stone from the dirt, and then you add in the crushed stone. So right there, if you can think about that, you've created a giant bathtub for water to collect in, if it somehow manages to migrate its way down into the sub-base, and then it slowly releases into the ground that way. So you get a lot less freeze-thaw cycles that could occur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it heaving and make your project look off because of it. Yeah, that's a big misconception and a big development is I was familiar that GA you called it was used and I've seen projects done or have had them done and once you compact that it's like concrete concrete, so water's not going to get through it right.
Speaker 3:So what happens is that you've created an impermeable base yeah, okay so water will eventually, because you have those fines and the fines are like a sponge or flower, right, they'll absorb water. So then the water finds its way in there and then it kind of stays there.
Speaker 3:So, yes, it does turn to concrete and it's very, very hard, but the whole idea of interlock and and retaining walls is that is, that they're malleable and they can move and they're dependent of one another yeah, and they're supposed to in lieu of like stamp, concrete or something which is one big piece exactly so, like I'm, I don't like stamp concrete, and that's kind of just a personal preference, but a lot of that is just because you can't fix stamp concrete. Well, you can't, but exactly it doesn't. It's not like it's something where you can just pick it up, fix the the layers that are underneath and put it back down. You need to do mud jacking or a whole bunch of other stuff, which is like a whole other ball game and it's not something that a homeowner could potentially fix yep, no here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but with interlock if there's unevenness in one little small area. That that's something somebody could do on their own, I presume, or or bring you into remedy exactly, yeah, and that's typically covered under warranty, like, oh, something moves, all right.
Speaker 3:Well, we're definitely coming back and fixing that, because that's not supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:Yep, well, excellent. Well, thanks for clearing that up. That's a um, that's a big one. The fact that you're using clear stone instead of G G a is uh, I hadn't heard that. That's uh, that's good. Um, tell us, justin, outside of work, uh, how do you enjoy spending your time?
Speaker 3:Oh, I do a multi, a myriad of different things. So, uh, I like to work on vintage motorcycles oh nice, specifically two strokes. So it's been a little while since I've raced any, but I do have a few in the garage that I've been building over the years to kind of some point in time. Once I manage to have some weekends to myself in the in the summertime, I can get out and go racing with uh, with the club that we have here in eastern ontario yeah, that sounds uh super fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what, what? So two-stroke, like what type of bike? Uh, in particular is it uh like on the sports side, or a cruiser, or yeah so they're, they're vintage, um, like moto gp bikes.
Speaker 3:I say moto gp and everybody thinks motocross uh well, moto gp is like on road. Okay, these are on-road motorcycles that were built. The oldest one I have is an 87. There's a 91. And then I have a 96 behind me sitting in my living room here. Yeah, very nice, and then aside from that, we're looking to open up a dog park.
Speaker 3:Hey, nice, open up a dog park, and so we have a non-profit organization where we take care of uh, it's kind of like a mental health and positive well-being in in our uh in our area so one of those things is a dog park, and then we have a community garden as well. So we're kind of always busy building stuff or doing things to to help the community yeah, nice, and it's uh just from a well-being perspective.
Speaker 2:It's amazing what, uh what dogs bring to the family oh, absolutely sheer joy. Yeah, ours is a little on the anxious side, but uh, still, an amazing dog, like very much a part of the family, gets a little anxious when people come around.
Speaker 3:We're uh, we're country bumpkins though, so it's uh, it's far and few between right yeah, my guy, my guy's uh, he's a guard dog, so he sits at the window and he's currently sitting at the window with his chin on the uh on the window, just looking straight out, kind of waiting for the person to walk by. So at some point in time we're likely going to see him or hear him go crazy yeah, well, that'd be amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and same with mine, and uh, we didn't anticipate having a guard dog and didn't think a aussie doodle would be a guard dog. But okay she certainly, uh, lets us know if anybody comes around absolutely wasn't our intent. We kind of like, like the dogs, that kind of lick you to death, but you know.
Speaker 3:It happens it happens for certain.
Speaker 2:How can listeners learn more about what you do? And I know we touched on the hardscapes and I know there's other things you do, like the pools and even artificial turf and a whole bunch of stuff. And do you have in-house designing as well?
Speaker 3:We have some in-house design, but I like to use other designers as well. There's getting tastes from other people, a lot of like your own. Individual tastes change right, and it's a matter of finding the right designer for the right individual. So I like to work with. There's about four or five designers that I work with and you, you vet the client and you okay, what type of space are you looking for? What are you looking to do? What's your price point? All right, well, based on this, this uh criteria exactly who I recommend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I I think that's really the way to go, because, uh, you know, all clients are different as well, right? Exactly it's important to marry them up with the right designer.
Speaker 3:So yeah, having having that different goal in mind for, for your outdoor living space, um kind of changes, who you probably should work with, you may get some people that design something really really nice.
Speaker 2:And you're like that's amazing, but that's not me. Where can listeners learn more about what you do?
Speaker 3:So they can find us on our website. So it's desa D-E-S-A constructiongroupcom. They can also find us on our socials at DeSalle Construction Group. We're on TikTok. We're on a myriad of them, like it's never ending.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it seems like it's never ending. For sure, I saw the old Facebook and Instagram and you know, yeah and all those ones. Oh sorry, Please go ahead.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was just going to say like we also have, uh, an artificial grass company that one's more of like a luxury artificial grass and that can be found. Same thing it's called agl grass ottawa.
Speaker 2:That can be found dot com, on the socials at, and I'm pretty sure we're going to have another one where we're for another podcast where we'll focus I was going to say that because, you know, you know, it's just such a cool innovative product that I think it would be, it would make sense to have a conversation about that on its own, let alone. Uh, I've got some buddies who would love to have a little putting green in their backyard as well, which I imagine that's a possibility absolutely, we can help you out with that.
Speaker 3:We have two different putting greens and chipping greens and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2:But more so, like in the city, is the bigger application the fact that it's maintenance-free.
Speaker 3:So a lot of people are wanting that maintenance-free lifestyle.
Speaker 3:They don't want to have to come home, take care of the lawn and do all that sort of stuff. If you actually added up how much time you spend doing it over the course of, say, a season it's about a hundred hours or um how much do you spend having somebody come to your house and cut the grass for you and clean up after them and do you end up with unsatisfactory service at some point? Did they miss something? Did they not do something? So it's like, okay, well, how about we do a permanent install and you get exactly what you want?
Speaker 3:There's 12 different types of grasses, a whole bunch of different colors and different cuts. I mean, there's a whole array of possibilities out there. And it's kind of like well, what kind of grass do you like? Do you like it long and scraggly? Do you want it short and manicured and it looks absolutely perfect? Do you want a dark green, light green, a little bit of brown, a little bit of thatch, a little bit of brown, a little bit of thatch, a little bit of this, like there's so many, oh, it's endless.
Speaker 2:You know, like I mentioned, country bumpkins over here. So we live in the country means we're not on a city lot and hours a week on the zero turn. It's really demanding like, especially in the early spring when it just seems to it grows wild demanding, like, especially in the early spring when it just seems to it grows wild.
Speaker 3:So but yeah, and, and this is uh like we have, one of our slogans for the spring is no more muddy pots yeah, nice because we gear towards well. It's not that we gear towards strictly people with dogs, but a lot of people with dogs realize there's a huge benefit there's a huge benefit and my dog rips up my lawn and it never looks good.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, this, this, the whole company, is geared towards dogs. Like we have a warranty that's 15 years that covers anything that could possibly go wrong with the grass, and that warranties against, you know, dogs beating it up and chewing on it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yep and urine's not an issue like dog urine on it.
Speaker 3:Nope, and urine's not an issue like dog urine on it, no. So this is one of the few non-infill products that are on the market. So an infill is like a silica sand or a plastic pellet they call zeolite that other companies will put on top of their grass. So they're using that as a way of like holding up the fibers and and to weigh the product down, whereas our product is a no infill product. So we don't have any of that and the fibers, kind of like they're so dense that they hold each other up. So because we have no infill, we don't have anything for the urine to kind of latch onto and it just passes right through the grass and then there's drainage holes every four inches. It accepts a ton of water.
Speaker 3:And once a week you hose it down where the dogs go to the bathroom Sounds easy to me. It's absolutely astonishing how much time and like just how nice it is to look outside and go.
Speaker 2:Ah, I don't have to touch that, it looks perfect. Yes, please Well listen, justin. It's been a pleasure having you on the show today and thanks for sharing what you do with our listeners, and I guess we look forward to seeing you out in the community.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me. It's been great talking with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Capital Connections Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to CapitalConnectionsPodcastcom. That's CapitalConnectionsPodcastcom, or call 343-803-6268.