Getting there
Delano is about 20 miles east of our Cokato shop, straight down US-12 through Howard Lake and Montrose. Call it 30 minutes with the truck and trailer. It is the far end of our circle, so we group Delano jobs together and plan a full day when we come out. We will tell you up front if a small repair does not make sense at that distance.
Delano's housing boom and what it left behind
Delano went from about 2,500 people in 1980 to roughly 6,500 by 2020, and it grew as a commuter town: downtown Minneapolis is under 30 minutes away on US-12. The median home here was built in 1997 and a quarter of the housing stock went up between 2000 and 2009. That means a large share of Delano driveways are the original builder pour, now 20 to 25 years old. Builder-grade slabs often went in at 4 inches on whatever the excavator left, with a garage apron that was never tied to the footing. Twenty winters of frost on clay lift the apron, settle the slab behind it, and open the joints. When we replace one, we pull the old slab, dig to a compacted class 5 base, pour 5 inches with control joints cut on a real grid, and pitch the whole thing away from the house.
Clay, the Crow River, and where water goes
The South Fork of the Crow River runs right through the middle of Delano, and the town takes it seriously. The city's flood plan closes the Bridge Avenue bridge into downtown when the river hits 19 feet, and it has crested above 20 feet more than once, including April 2023 and again in June 2024. The older homes along River Street sit on the low ground, and the ground under all of Delano is glacial till: clay that holds water instead of draining it, then heaves when it freezes. For a patio or walk that means we never pitch toward the house, we add drain tile where a slab meets a foundation, and we grade a swale to move runoff toward the street or the river instead of letting it pond against a footing. Anything structural, a wall footing or a set of steps, goes down to the 42-inch frost depth Wright County builds to.
Retaining walls and steps on Delano lots
Newer Delano subdivisions were graded for walkout and lookout basements, so a lot of backyards drop a full story from the patio door to the lawn. Holding that grade is retaining-wall work. A segmental block wall over 4 feet needs an engineered design, and any wall we build gets a compacted gravel base, drainage stone and perforated tile behind the first course, and geogrid on the taller ones. On the older lots near downtown the request is usually simpler: a new front walk to meet the city sidewalk, a stoop that has settled away from the door, or concrete steps poured on footings instead of the floating slab that was there.
Concrete flatwork in Delano
For Delano, concrete flatwork mostly means replacing the first-generation driveways and garage aprons from the town's 1990s and 2000s build-out, this time over a base that was actually compacted. How we pour driveways, patios, and pool decks that hold up here.
Lake and shoreline work near Delano
Delano's water is river, not lake. Lots along the South Fork of the Crow River deal with spring crests rather than wave action, so the shoreline work we do here is bank stabilization with riprap and boulders, drainage that moves runoff toward the river instead of the foundation, and patios and steps set well above the flood stage the city plans around. Riprap, boulder walls, and what the permits look like.
Around Delano
- South Fork of the Crow River
- Bridge Avenue bridge
- Hennepin County line
What we build in Delano
Questions from Delano
Do you really come all the way to Delano from Cokato?
Yes. Delano is about 20 miles east of our shop on US-12, roughly 30 minutes, and it is the eastern edge of where we work. We schedule Delano as full days and try to pair a site visit with other stops in Montrose or Watertown, so an estimate may take a few days longer to line up than one in Cokato.
My Delano driveway from the early 2000s is cracking and lifting at the garage. Is that normal?
It is common in Delano because so many driveways went in during the 2000 to 2009 build-out on clay soil with a thin base. Frost lifts the apron, the slab settles behind it, and the joint opens. We replace rather than patch: pull the slab, compact a class 5 base, pour 5 inches, cut joints on a grid, and pitch it away from the garage.
We are near the Crow River in Delano. Does that change how you build a patio?
It does. The river has crested above 20 feet in recent years and the city's flood plan starts at 19, so on a low lot we set the patio elevation with spring water in mind, grade runoff toward the river, and add drain tile at the foundation. We also check whether the lot is in a mapped floodplain before changing grade, since that affects what the city allows.
Nearby
We also work in Montrose, Watertown and Buffalo. All the towns we cover.