Foundation installation in Duluth MN - built to stay put through deep frost

Most people call us with a lot, a set of plans or a rough idea, and two questions: how deep does this have to go, and what will it run? The price mostly moves with how deep we dig, how big and how chopped-up the footprint is, which design you pick and what we find for water once the ground is open. The schedule turns on the weather, the city's permit and inspections, and curing, which is the time the concrete needs to harden before anything gets built on it. If you're putting a building on a slab with no walls, that's our slab foundation building work. I can't give you a real number over the phone, so the estimate visit is where you get one for your lot.

Before any digging, we talk through whether a frost-protected shallow design is worth a look for your building or whether a full-depth footing is the better fit. We also plan how water will drain away from the walls before a single form goes in. Then our crew digs out and packs the subgrade, the ground the footings sit on, so it holds steady instead of settling later. We set the forms and tie in rebar, the steel that keeps the concrete holding together when the ground pushes on it, then pour the footings and walls. We let them cure before we coat the outside, set the drainage and backfill. If the budget gets tight, that buried drainage and coating is the last place I'd cut, because nobody sees it once the dirt is back, but you'll live with what it does every spring.

Not every project needs full walls. If you're adding a deck, a porch or a small addition, we pour concrete footings on their own. For a commercial building, we can plan the foundation together with our concrete parking lot building work, so the grade and runoff of both get worked out at once.

A foundation in Duluth needs a building permit. The city requires one for any work on a building's structure, and its list of work that doesn't need a permit covers things like sheds and fences, not foundations. Either the owner or the contractor doing the work gets the permit, and anyone who isn't the owner has to be a licensed contractor under Minnesota's rules. The city also requires inspections on all permitted work, to check that it meets code and matches the plans. When a job needs a permit, we pull it and book the inspections. If you'd rather apply yourself, I'll tell you what the city will want to see from us.

Winter is the other thing that changes the job here, because frost goes deep, so the depth question in the answers below comes first on every foundation we plan. Most of the foundation calls we get are for additions, detached garages and new builds. We plan for the same long winters on jobs in Hermantown and Cloquet.