Lake seawall construction is sometimes harrowing, and other times it’s pretty easy. It all depends on whom you use to construct your seawall, of course. People who do not live up North will not understand why a lake seawall is needed at all, and would rather we leave it like Mother Nature intended and have that nice little slope from the land into the lake. That’s fine if you do not take into account what winter does to a lake. For instance, there is thermal expansion of the ice, then when the ice breaks, you can have mile long pieces of ice battering against the land’s banks, thus taking a lot of land with it each winter and spring thaw. Accordingly the answer to all that land erosion is lake seawall construction.
First off you will need to reach someone who knows what they are doing. Here in Vermont, that’s easy, you simply contact the services of Open Earth Landscaping!
One of the first things that they will do is to understand when your lake is at its lowest point. This may be when it’s artificially done such as when it’s brought down by the water authorities, or in the midst of summer when water evaporates. There are, however a few bodies of water which are actually regulated by your local power company. You may need to check with them about that. Now that you know the levels of your particular lake, your next step is to have an engineer look at it, and of course he will order a survey to be done. Again, you might simply call the above landscaper.
Permits will have to be drawn if you do this yourself, and it may take you a while, as you may not have the proper construction drawings. The landscaping company would normally have accomplished that for you, by the way.
The cutting back of vegetation follows, and great care needs to be taken that contaminants or debris does not enter the lake. You will be told by the designer of your lake seawall construction what kind of seawall is best for your particular area, based on the amount of ice involved during the winter, and how much back fill has to be supplied behind the wall to allow for water to be able to escape. The erosive forces will be carefully studied by your landscaping company, then the decisions will be made, or you may have checked out other lake seawalls in your area and found that you are specifically wishing to have this or the other. You have probably seen also how long their seawalls have lasted, and want a similar one for your own parcel of land. Keep in mind while construction follows that you can have holdups due to Mother Nature, as the power equipment cannot work on soggy ground and such.
Finally once your seawall is up, you will need to replant. Chances are that you will need to utilize plants that are indigenous to the area, thus once more the expertise from your landscaper will be of extreme importance. Consequently in Vermont, do call upon Open Earth Landscaping for your proper lake seawall construction!