Concrete Contractor in Edina, MN

Edina is a straightforward town to pour in once you know its two numbers, and they are not the numbers people expect. The maximum residential driveway width is thirty feet, which is generous, and the edge of a curb cut has to sit at least fifty feet from an intersection, which is a long way to give up on a corner lot. Design around those two and most Edina driveway projects go smoothly.

The city is in Hennepin County, which puts it in Zone II under Minnesota Rules 1303.1600. Minimum footing depth is forty-two inches below finished grade, absent an engineer's soil mechanics determination allowing a shallower depth. Frost is also the reason a stoop that was set on a shallow pad tips away from the front door after a few winters and one carried down below frost does not.

A permit is required to modify, relocate or reconstruct the portion of a driveway that sits within the city's right-of-way. The department is the Engineering Division, reachable at 952-826-0371, and applications go through the city's ePermits portal with plan review handled in ProjectDox. The city's Right-of-Way and Street Permitting page lists driveway entrances, along with connecting to the city sump line, as permitted work, and there is no evidence of a second, separate right-of-way permit stacked on top of the driveway entrance permit. On the fee, the city does not state an amount on either the curb cut page or the right-of-way permitting page, so we do not quote one.

We pour stamped patios, pool decks, driveways, walks, steps, footings and foundation walls in Edina, and we run our own line pump for the backyards that a ready mix truck cannot serve, which on an established Edina lot is often the only way the concrete gets there.

Edina driveway rules, and an established housing stock

The width allowance is worth dwelling on because it changes what is possible. Thirty feet is enough for a three car approach that actually works, for a turnaround that lets you leave the property facing forward, or for a widened apron that keeps two vehicles from squeezing past each other at the garage. The city page does not specify a minimum width. What it does say, plainly, is that there are no setback requirements for residential driveways and no minimum required distance between driveways, which removes a constraint that trips up projects in neighboring cities.

The fifty foot rule is the one that bites. The edge of the curb cut must be at least fifty feet from an intersection. On a corner lot that can eliminate an entire side of the property as a location, and it is far better to find that out at the design stage than after a homeowner has fallen in love with a layout. We check corner distance on any Edina job before we talk about pattern or finish.

There is a construction standard attached as well. On concrete and bituminous roadways that have curb and gutter, the city requires a concrete apron. For us that is a straightforward requirement to meet, and it is also a useful thing for a homeowner to know when comparing a concrete bid against an asphalt one. The city also makes the property owner and the contractor responsible for repairing any damage to public infrastructure, which is a real line item and a real reason to keep heavy equipment off a curb rather than crossing it repeatedly with a loaded truck.

If your property is under seventy-five feet wide and you want more than one driveway, that requires City Engineer approval. The standards behind all of this are codified at Edina City Code Sections 24-129 through 24-133, which is the citation to hand to anyone who tells you something different.

Now the housing, where Edina has published figures. The city's own Comprehensive Plan Housing Chapter states that over half of the housing stock, fifty-five percent, was built in the 1960s and earlier, and describes development running largely from the late 1800s through the early 1980s, at which point the city was largely built out, with growth since then coming mainly through infill and redevelopment. That is a city document, not a real estate site, and it lines up exactly with what we find on site.

What that means for concrete is specific. Minnesota does not freeze once and thaw once a year. The temperature crosses freezing repeatedly through the spring and the fall, so a driveway poured in the 1960s has been through sixty seasons of that cycling and of de-icing salt, and, on many of these streets, utility work at some point along its length. The failures we see are not mysterious: panels tipped by frost heave where the base never drained, joints opened up until they stopped functioning as joints, aprons crumbled at the street where the loading is worst, and surface scaling from salt. The right answer to almost all of it is a full tear out with a corrected base rather than an overlay on top of a slab that is already telling you it is finished.

Because so much of Edina was built out before the 1980s, most of the properties we work on have established landscaping around them, and access is usually the first thing we look at. Trees that predate the current owner, established beds, retaining walls along the property line, pools already in the ground. That is what the pump is for. Keeping the mixer truck at the street and placing concrete from there is how a patio gets poured behind an established Edina house without the yard becoming a second project.

The last thing worth saying is about finish. The difference between an average stamped patio and a good one lives in border treatment, joint placement, edge work and color depth rather than in the pattern name on the sample board. We would rather spend the extra time on the border and the release color than sell you a bigger slab.

What we pour in Edina

• Full driveway tear out and replacement, including wide approaches up to the thirty foot maximum
• Concrete aprons on streets with curb and gutter, as the city requires
• Stamped patios, sitting areas and pool decks behind established homes
• Pumped backyard pours where mature landscaping blocks a truck route
• Turnarounds and widened approaches on properties where the corner setback allows
• Footings and frost walls at forty-two inches for additions, garages and outbuildings
• Front walks, steps and stoops rebuilt on proper footings rather than reset on the old pad
• Exposed aggregate, broom finish and decorative border work to match existing hardscape