Getting there
About 13 miles north of our shop, roughly 20 minutes up County Road 3 out of Cokato to Highway 55. We plan Annandale jobs as full days, and a boulder delivery to a lake lot gets scheduled around the truck's route.
Annandale housing: cabins that became homes, and new builds on the water
Annandale is a town of about 3,300 people, larger than Cokato and growing. The town itself has an older core along Highway 55 with the usual mix of small-lot homes and aging concrete. The larger share of our work is outside the city limits on the lakes, where the housing runs from older cabins that have been winterized and added onto over the years to newer year-round homes built on the same sloped lots. That history matters for concrete. An old cabin lot often has a patchwork of slabs, steps, and walls poured at different times by different people, none of them on much of a base. When a lot like that gets a new house or a major remodel, the outdoor concrete and stone usually need to start over.
Clearwater, Pleasant, Sugar, Granite, and John
Clearwater Lake is the big one, around 3,100 acres with roughly 35 miles of shoreline, shared with Stearns County. Pleasant Lake is just under 400 acres, and Clearwater/Pleasant County Park sits on 210 acres between the two with a beach and public access. Sugar Lake, Granite Lake, and Lake John round out the lakes closest to town. The lots on all of them share the same problems: a bank that drops toward the water, ice push in spring, and wave action all summer. A boulder retaining wall holds the bank, riprap protects the toe where the water hits, and steps set into the slope get you to the dock without a muddy scramble. We also pour a lot of slabs for lake sheds and boathouses on these lots, and concrete pads under decks so the space underneath stays usable.
Slopes, clay, and moving water
The soil around Annandale is glacial till, clay that holds water and heaves in a hard freeze. On a flat lot in town that means a compacted gravel base under every slab and a pitch that sends water away from the house. On a sloped lake lot it means thinking about where the spring melt goes, because all of it is headed for the lake and your patio, wall, and steps are in the way. We build drainage into the walls, set a stone bed or a swale to carry water around the flatwork, and keep the top of the wall pitched back so surface water does not run over the face. Footings that need to be frost-protected go to the 42-inch depth Wright County builds to.
Concrete flatwork in Annandale
Concrete flatwork in Annandale is patios, pads under decks, and slabs for lake sheds more than driveways, because most of the lots that call us are on the water and the useful flat ground is the space between the house and the bank. How we pour driveways, patios, and pool decks that hold up here.
Lake and shoreline work near Annandale
Annandale is our busiest shoreline town. Boulder walls, riprap, and lake-access steps on Clearwater, Pleasant, Sugar, Granite, and John lakes are the projects we drive up Highway 55 for, and a sloped lot with a washing bank is the kind of site we bid most often here. Shoreline work at or below the ordinary high water line needs a permit, and we will tell you which parts of the plan need one. Our boulder retaining wall and fieldstone riprap job on Lake Sylvia, the two connected lakes southwest of town, is the closest example of this work to Annandale, and the photos are on the projects page. Riprap, boulder walls, and what the permits look like.
Around Annandale
- Lake Sylvia
- Clearwater Lake
- Pleasant Lake
- Sugar Lake
- Granite Lake
- Lake John
- Clearwater/Pleasant County Park
- Highway 55
What we build in Annandale
Questions from Annandale
Our Clearwater Lake bank is steep and losing ground every spring. Boulder wall or riprap?
Usually both, in different places. Riprap goes at the toe where waves and ice hit, and it works because it is loose stone that absorbs the energy. A boulder wall goes above that where the bank is steep enough that loose stone would slide. On a Clearwater lot with 35 miles of open water working on it, protecting the toe first is the priority. We look at the slope and the fetch on the site visit before recommending either.
We are replacing a cabin on Sugar Lake with a year-round home. Should the outdoor concrete wait until the house is done?
Yes, mostly. Driveways, patios, and slabs go in after the house is closed in and the heavy equipment is gone, so they are not driven over during construction. The exception is anything the builder needs early, like a garage floor. A shoreline wall can go in before, during, or after, since it is on the other side of the lot from the construction traffic.
Can you get boulders down to the water on a wooded Annandale lot with a narrow access?
Most of the time. We walk your lot first and look at the path a skid steer or mini excavator can take between the trees. Boulders are staged at the top and moved down one at a time. On a lot with no equipment path at all, we can sometimes work from a barge, but that is a different conversation and a different cost, and we will tell you on the site visit which one you have.
Nearby
We also work in Maple Lake, Cokato and Howard Lake. All the towns we cover.