FAQs on Shoreline Restoration
If you’d like to end erosion on your shoreline and add beauty to it, we hope you’ll read our reviews, view our photos, conclude that only Lakeshore Guys® can do it once and do it right, and contact us to make it happen. But you may have some questions first. You can click on a link (below) to jump down to the answer to your question, or you can just read on.
Why shouldn’t I hire a landscaper?
Do you give free estimates?
How far do you travel?
Do you (or I) need a permit?
If I need to apply for a permit, how do I know where the OHWL (ordinary high water level) is?
Do you offer warranties or guarantees?
Do you only install riprap?
Is riprap the only type of erosion-resistant shoreline you can build?
I don’t really know what I need. Will you propose a few different designs and let me choose?
What are your qualifications?
You say your shorelines are approved by The Department of Natural Resources. What does that mean?
What’s the cheapest riprap shoreline you can build me?
After you’ve restored my shoreline, how can I keep it in good shape?
How much damage will you do to my yard?
How do you keep your riprap so clean?
Will riprap prevent ice heaving or ice push?
Can you prevent Muskrats from damaging my shoreline?
What is riprap, exactly?
Do you offer boat-lift and/or dock installation/removal services?
Are you more expensive than others?
What are your qualifications?
I have a very specific idea of what I want my shoreline to look like. How can I get that across to you?
Why shouldn’t I hire a landscaper?
If you’d like an ugly shoreline that falls apart in a couple years, you should work with your local landscaping company. They’re inexpensive for a reason. They’ll skip or skimp on the most important parts of developing a durable shoreline, like using the correct and using the proper fabric with a seamless installation.
They’ll lay down cheap fabric that will not allow water to pass through it, it will have unnecessary seams, or it will rip or degrade in short of a few years (or they’ll do all 3). Then they will pile improperly sized, ugly, unwashed quarry rock on your shoreline, and call it a day. They’ll be unwilling or unable to help you on the finer aesthetic details you can add only to a solidly built shoreline, and likely will ignore your special requests. Their cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and long use of your bathroom will seem like trivial gripes once you’ve had a chance to live with their handiwork for a while.
But hey, the landscaper will be cheap.
If the thought of hiring a landscaper doesn’t excite you so much anymore, our signature Armored Shoreline might. It’s the toughest (and best-looking) riprap shoreline built by mortal hands. We’ll build it with the kind of professionalism that’s rare these days. (Read our reviews to see what we mean.)
Do you give free estimates?
No. We charge a small fee for most on-site consultations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and it goes up from there depending on where in the state (or country) you’re located. Unlike your typical contractors, our goal is not to crank out as many free estimates as possible in a season. We only have time to drive out to shoreline property owned by people who are serious about properly restoring their shoreline. If we end up working together, we’ll apply your consultation fee toward any work you have us do.
You’re getting much more than an estimate: you’ll meet with Joe Palumbo, owner of Lakeshore Guys®, who’s got 20+ years of experience in building the toughest and best-looking shorelines. He’ll tell you the problems with your shoreline and the best remedies to those problems. If you end up choosing Lakeshore Guys®, we’ll do it once, and we’ll do it right.
How far do you travel?
Although our “core” service area is here in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, we are also regional company. We’ll stop at nothing to bring quality shoreline restoration to any body of water in the Midwest – and beyond. That’s a big service area, we know. It includes other big states with lots of lakes, like Wisconsin and North Dakota. But people’s love of lakefront retreats has no geographical limit. Aside from travel expenses, we don’t charge our out-of-state customers a penny more than our customers who are located right here in Minneapolis!
So, yes, we travel.
If you’re looking for the very best team for the job, you probably don’t care if we have to travel a bit. Our customers have considered it a bargain to pay for us to travel hundreds of miles, put us up in a motel, and feed us for a few days. The quality and durability of our work is worth it to them (to say nothing of what a beautiful shoreline can add to your property value). It is also common for us to stay onsite in a customer’s cabin, where we cook our own food and keep room and board cost to an absolute minimum. On several occasions our clients may even cook for us. A grill, meat, potatoes and a cooler of beverages (on ice of course), and we’ll be happy as clams!
Do you (or I) need a permit?
That depends on what exactly you’re proposing to have done. For most common work taking place along a shoreline (i.e. Riprap, Native seeding, etc.) a permit is typically not needed. But…you should always check with your states DNR and/or city/township office. They may also forward you on to other agencies that have jurisdiction or interests related to your shoreline (i.e. federal, state, and local units of government – including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, watershed districts, water management organizations, and counties. Please see this page for more “official” information on permitting.
If I need to apply for a permit, how do I know where the OHWL (ordinary high water level) is?
What is OHWL? OHWL is an acronym for Ordinary High Water Level. The OHWL is a reference to the elevation of common water levels during high water periods.
How do I know where my OHWL is? Commonly the OHWL is the point at which the natural vegetation changes from predominately aquatic vegetation to predominantly terrestrial vegetation. For example, in lakes and wetlands the OHWL is the highest water level that has been maintained for a sufficient enough period of time that it has left clear evidence on the landscape. For rivers, streams and creeks, the OHWL is the elevation of the top of the bank of the channel. For reservoirs and flowages with controlled water levels the OHWL is the operating elevation of the normal summer pool.
Contact your local area hydrologist if you need additional help in determining the OHWL for your specific lake, river, stream, or creek.
Do you offer warranties or guarantees?
Ever notice how the cheapest products have the most outlandish warranties? You can put a warranty on a box of cow manure, but it’s still cow manure. With us, you simply won’t need a traditional “warranty”. We take the extra time up-front to understand your needs and unique situation, and to tell you exactly what we can do to create your perfect shoreline. We guarantee that we’ll use the best materials money can buy, as well as never skimp on quantity of those materials we use. We’ll install your shoreline with the passion, know-how, and care of a Japanese tea-ceremony master.
Do you only install riprap?
No. We can transform your shoreline in many other ways. Now, installing riprap is by far the most popular method of stabilizing and beautifying shorelines, but we offer the full range of options, including riprap, native plantings, wetland buffers, wildflower and other native seeding via hydro-seeding, sand beaches, etc.).
We can festoon your shoreline with other amenities, like steps and staircases, switchbacks, retaining walls, decorative borders, boat ramps, pilings, fire pits, outdoor speakers, sitting areas such as paver stone patios, etc.
Is riprap the only type of erosion-resistant shoreline you can build?
It’s pretty much the only type that stands the test of time. Under the right circumstances we can use native plantings, but even then we usually need to combine it with some amount of riprap. Not many materials are tougher than stone. Riprap rules.
I don’t really know what I need. Will you propose a few different designs and let me choose?
We’ll discuss all your options while we’re on-site. (For starters, you might consider our signature Armored Shoreline – a great option if you’re looking for maximum durability.) You tell us which design ideas you like most, we’ll write you a quote, and then the magic can happen.
What are your qualifications?
We’ve been restoring shorelines for over 20 years, and as lifelong Minnesotans we’ve been enjoying them for lifetimes. Please Google “Lakeshore Guys®” (or see our “Reviews” page) to see what customers say about our handiwork. If you believe in getting a job done once and getting it done right, you can reach out to us and discover first-hand why we’re the best.
You say your shorelines are approved by the Department of Natural Resources. What does that mean?
The DNR has laid out a set of guidelines that they believe all properly built shorelines have in common, such as a 3:1 slope, filter fabric extending a certain distance, a certain type and size of riprap, and other specs. It is possible to have a quality shoreline that’s not DNR-compliant, but in most cases ours just happen to be both.
What’s the cheapest riprap shoreline you can build me?
The cheapest properly built riprap shoreline is one that consists of regrading, filter-fabric, and riprap. No steps, no beach area, no border of edging, and no decorative rock or mulch border.
We won’t put our name on the kind of cheap work landscapers pass off as shoreline restoration, but we can create a spartan yet beautiful shoreline for you. As long as you’re looking for a properly built shoreline, you’ve found the right guys. We’re happy to restore any shoreline (with or without all the bells & whistles), as long as it’s built right!
After you’ve restored my shoreline, how can I keep it in good shape?
Our shorelines are pretty maintenance-free. We go to great lengths to keep your riprap as clean and dirt-and-contaminant-free as possible in the installation phase. This greatly minimizes any weed growth in your riprap (which also reduces fabric deterioration, which compromises the integrity of your shoreline).
Our only bits of maintenance advice are: (1) do not blow grass into the riprap when mowing your lawn, and (2) try to keep your riprap free of lake weeds that may have blown or floated onto your riprap. That’s the best way to keep your riprap from becoming a Chia Pet of weeds.
How much damage will you do to my yard?
We are pleased to say that in the last handful of years we can’t remember a single project that required more than a drizzle of topsoil and seed here and there. For that reason we use special smooth rubber tracks and smaller equipment, to minimize damage to your yard.
It didn’t take us too many years in business before we realized that repairing large areas of destroyed turf took nearly as long as restoring the shorelines themselves. That was a huge expense for us, and might have been a big expense for you, had we not invested in a solution. With the use of our smooth rubber tracks, we’ll amaze you at how many trips we can make across the average lawn without damaging it. Sure, we’ll leave small indentations, tiny tears in your lawn here and there, etc. But by the time we’ve thoroughly hand raked those areas, blown them (to fluff the grass back up), and lightly drizzled a little topsoil, seed, and fertilizer everywhere, you’ll hardly know we were there.
That enables us to save you a chunk on the cost of your project. It also saves you the headache of weaning along several hundred yards of fresh and fragile sod for most of your summer. We’d prefer you have a cold beverage in your hand this summer, not dragging around 100 feet of garden hose twice a day.
How do you keep your riprap so clean?
We created and built our own riprap bucket that allows dirt to pass through the bucket until only the clean riprap stone remains. It’s an ingenious contraption that we could not imagine living without! When we’ve finished scooping up all the riprap from the street (or wherever we had it dumped), when you see the amount of dirt and debris leftover, we can only say that you’ll be extremely thankful we went the extra mile and used a custom made rock bucket! We think that the several full wheelbarrow loads of dirt we shovel up off the street will be enough by itself to be thankful you hired us, and not some “dollar menu” landscaper or contractor.
Will riprap prevent ice heaving or ice push?
In most cases proper riprap engineering and installation will greatly minimize the chances of your shoreline getting damaged by ice heaving, ice jacking, or pressure ridges. Riprap guards against those phenomena because as the ice approaches your shoreline, the ice slides up onto your shoreline, and is not able to push against it. That’s one of the reasons the slope (AKA grading) of your shoreline is so vital to a properly constructed shoreline.
Should your shoreline get into an arm-wrestling match with a giant frozen sheet of ice, the shoreline will lose. The riprap serves to grease up your opponent’s elbow and take him to the mat. You can’t stop the ice, but you can try to encourage the ice to slip up onto your shoreline instead of pushing against it.
There is no guarantee that riprapping will prevent winter shoreline damage, and anyone who makes this claim is selling you snake oil. Proper riprapping is your best defense against ice-related shoreline damage, but it’s not an absolute guarantee. I can tell you in 20+ years of shoreline restoration, only three times have I seen one of our shorelines destroyed by ice. Now that doesn’t mean you won’t be the 4th, but I think those stats are worth serious consideration. You can read more about ice-related damage here: lakeshoreguys.com/your-shorelines-top-3-enemies/
Can you prevent Muskrats from damaging my shoreline?
Absolutely. Muskrat-proofing a shoreline is an option we offer and install frequently. It works like a charm. But “prevent” is a strong word. Although in almost all cases we actually do “prevent” muskrats and other fury little critters from burrowing into your shoreline and causing a ruckus, we prefer to say that we create “muskrat-resistant” shorelines. Why? Because every once and while one or more tenacious little varmint may somehow find a way over or under our labyrinth of metal gridding. Caddy Shack comes to mind – ♫ I’m Allright ♫ by Kenny Loggins playing in background…
What is riprap, exactly?
You can read the full, in-depth explanation here.
Do you offer boat-lift and/or dock installation/removal services?
Yes, and no. We will remove and/or install your dock or boat-lift if it’s part of a lakeshore restoration project. But…we do not offer a standalone service for removing or installing boat-lifts and/or docks.
Are you more expensive than others?
Yes in terms of dollars, but no in terms of the return on your investment. (Please take a moment to read our page on pricing.) In most cases we’re more “expensive,” but not for the reasons most people think. We’re not more expensive because we simply “charge more” or “profit more” than others do. We’re typically more expensive only because of the time, craftsmanship, and materials that go into building the best shoreline money can buy. Most of our customers recognize the difference, because they’ve dealt with failed shorelines installed by a standard-issue landscaper or general contractor. If not for cheap-o shorelines, we might be out of business!
“The Lakeshore Guys® were excellent from start to finish. Communication was frequent, and positive. Questions were answered promptly and thoughtfully. The work couldn’t;t have been better. Our ragged shoreline was filled with sink holes, over grown weeds and we were losing our back yard by the foot. Now that Lakeshore Guys® have built our Rip Rap shoreline it is a thing of beauty. My realtor friend told me that our property value increased significantly after their work was done. Price quote was met and no sneaky adds along the way. Truly felt like the guys cared about the work and the finished product. 5 Stars all the way!”
Karl Bradford
Review on Google Maps (5 stars)
What are your qualifications?
If you are someone who believes in doing the job once, and doing it right, and you are willing to pay for quality that pays for itself, then call us. We’ve got 20+ years in the business and a commitment to doing the job right. Be sure to read our reviews. You’ll see 5-star reviews and customers who are happy they called us. We don’t claim or try to be the cheapest. We put all our energy into being the best. We’ve found that makes a difference – a difference you can see.
I have a very specific idea of what I want my shoreline to look like. How can I get that across to you?
Send us a photo of the shoreline style you like, or call us to set up an on-site consultation (fee varies depending on your location) so that we can look at your shoreline and discuss it how to make it the shoreline you’ve always wanted.