Getting there
About 13 miles from the Newport shop: across the line to Oldtown, then south on ID-41 into Spirit Valley. Twenty minutes with the trailer.
Valley floor, benches, and the timbered sides
Spirit Valley is a long, fairly flat valley with mountains on both sides, and the ground in it comes in layers. The valley floor near Blanchard Creek and around Blanchard Lake is finer soil that holds water, and the low lots there dig easy but need a raised pad and a drainage plan. The benches on either side, where most of the newer homes are going, are glacial gravel and cobble over hardpan, which is good foundation ground and compacts well under a driveway. Up the valley sides the timber thickens and the rock starts, first as boulders in the soil and then as outcrop. The Cat 303.5E2 handles the bench ground without trouble, and we bid the rocky hillside lots as hard-dig work after we have walked them.
New homes on acreage and the golf community
Blanchard's housing is mostly rural: acreage lots with ponderosa pine and mixed conifer, a long gravel driveway, a well, and a septic system. The StoneRidge development is a 650-acre golf and recreation community with its own run of newer homes and lots, and those sites tend to be smaller and more finished, with the driveway, the pad, and the utility trenches all worked out to a plan. On both kinds of lot the job starts the same way: clear the envelope, get a driveway in that a concrete truck can use, cut and compact the pad, dig the foundation, and trench the water, power, and septic before the driveway is finished.
Seasons in Spirit Valley
Winters in Blanchard are cold enough to freeze the valley floor deep, and the mountains on either side hold snow into spring. When the melt comes, Blanchard Creek and the low ground around the lake take the water first, and mud season on the valley floor runs a good while. The benches drain faster and are usually workable by April. We schedule foundations and pad grading for firm ground and use the wet weeks for clearing and hauling. On a valley-floor lot the finish grade and the swales matter more than anywhere else we work, because there is nowhere for standing water to go unless you build it a path.
Building on a lot in Blanchard
New homes are the main reason we are in Blanchard, and every one of them is a new home site work job from start to finish: clearing, driveway, pad, foundation, and trenches, in that order. Our site preparation page at /service/site-preparation/ explains how we run the sequence and what the foundation crew and the septic installer need from us at each step. How new home site work runs, start to finish.
Permits around Blanchard
Blanchard is in Bonner County, Idaho. Land use and building location permits go through Bonner County Planning in Sandpoint, and septic permits go through Panhandle Health District. Lots inside StoneRidge may have their own design rules on top of the county's. We will tell you on the site walk which rules apply to your parcel and what has to be approved before we dig.
Around Blanchard
- ID-41
- Spirit Valley
- Blanchard Creek
- Blanchard Lake
- StoneRidge
What we do in Blanchard
Everything we do, on one page.
Questions from Blanchard
Do you work on lots inside StoneRidge at Blanchard?
Yes. StoneRidge lots tend to come with a plan already drawn, so our job is to cut the driveway, pad, and foundation to that plan and run the utility trenches to the stubs. The development may have design rules of its own on top of the Bonner County permits, and we will ask about those before we schedule so nothing has to be redone.
My Blanchard lot is on the valley floor and it is wet in spring. Can I still build on it?
Usually, with the right site plan. The pad gets raised and compacted so the house sits above the wet, the finish grade and swales give the water a route away from the foundation, and the septic system gets designed for the water table by someone who has seen the site evaluation. We will walk the lot in spring if we can, because that is when you see the real problem.
How long does it take to dig a foundation in Blanchard?
On a bench lot with normal gravel and cobble, a typical house foundation is a few days of digging with the Cat 303.5E2, plus the time to haul or place the spoil. Rock on a hillside lot or a wet valley-floor lot adds time. We give you a realistic window after the site walk and we coordinate with the foundation crew so the hole is not sitting open in the rain.
Nearby
We also work in Oldtown, Spirit Lake and Priest River. All the towns we cover.