Getting there
About 21 miles from the Newport shop: across the line to Oldtown, then south on ID-41 through Blanchard into Spirit Lake. Half an hour with the trailer. We group Spirit Lake and Blanchard jobs on the same days.
Lake lots, town lots, and the edge of the prairie
Spirit Lake has three kinds of ground. The lakefront lots slope to the water on glacial gravel and cobble, with the soil turning finer and wetter as you get close to the shore, so a foundation or septic dig near the lake gets planned around the water table and the shoreline rules. The town lots are older and small, on the flatter ground around Main Street, and the work there is tight-access: sewer lines, driveway tear-outs, backyard grading. South and east of town the ground opens toward the Rathdrum Prairie, and the prairie is very coarse glacial flood material, boulders, cobble, and gravel that drains fast and digs clean but does not hold water at all. Spirit Lake itself feeds the aquifer under that prairie through its bed. Timbered hills with rock under them close in on the north and west.
New homes and what they need from us
Spirit Lake has been growing, with new homes going in on subdivision lots around town, on the lake, and on acreage along ID-41 and ID-54. A lot in a new subdivision needs a foundation, a graded yard, and trenches to the street stubs. A lake lot needs a pad benched into the slope and a driveway that carries runoff around the house instead of into it. An acreage lot needs the full site prep: clearing where there is timber, a gravel driveway, the pad, the foundation, and a septic system where there is no sewer. On prairie-edge ground the cobble makes trenching slow and it makes compaction easy, and we plan the trench work with that in mind.
Seasons at the highest lake in the area
Spirit Lake sits higher than the other small lakes around it, and it gets a real winter with deep frost and snow that holds on the shaded north side of the lake. Spring thaw brings mud on the finer ground near the water and around town, while the coarse prairie-edge ground drains almost as soon as the frost is out. We schedule foundations and pad grading for firm ground and take the driveway and gravel work as early as the frost allows. Summer is busy on the lake and the narrow lake roads are easier for the trailer on weekdays.
Building on a lot in Spirit Lake
New home site work is most of what we do in Spirit Lake, on subdivision lots, lake lots, and acreage alike, and the order is the same each time: access, clearing, pad, foundation, trenches, finish grade. Our site preparation page at /service/site-preparation/ walks through that sequence and what the foundation crew gets from us when we are done. How new home site work runs, start to finish.
Permits around Spirit Lake
Spirit Lake is in Kootenai County, not Bonner County, so the offices are different from Blanchard and Oldtown. Outside the city limits, land use and building permits go through Kootenai County Community Development in Coeur d'Alene, and septic permits go through Panhandle Health District. Inside the Spirit Lake city limits, the city handles its own building permits. Lake lots carry shoreline rules. We will tell you on the site walk which office applies to your parcel.
Around Spirit Lake
- Spirit Lake
- ID-41
- ID-54
- Main Street
- Rathdrum Prairie
What we do in Spirit Lake
Everything we do, on one page.
Questions from Spirit Lake
Spirit Lake is in Kootenai County. Does that change the permits?
Yes. Blanchard and Oldtown are Bonner County, but Spirit Lake is Kootenai County, so land use and building go through Kootenai County Community Development for lots outside the city limits and through the City of Spirit Lake inside them. Septic is still Panhandle Health District on both sides of the county line. We will sort out which office applies on the site walk.
Is the ground near Spirit Lake hard to trench for utilities?
It can be. Out toward the prairie the ground is boulders, cobble, and gravel from the old glacial floods, and it slows a trench down and chews up bucket teeth. Closer to the lake and in town it is finer and easier. We look at the ground on the site walk and bid the trench accordingly, and the mini excavator handles cobble that would stall a smaller machine.
Can you dig a foundation on a sloped Spirit Lake lakefront lot?
Yes. We bench the pad into the slope, build up the low side with compacted fill, and put drainage above the house to catch what comes down the hill. The lower the lot sits, the closer the water table, so on the lots nearest the shore we look at that before we set the foundation depth. Shoreline rules apply near the water and we will go over them with you.
Is twenty-one miles from Newport too far for a small job in Spirit Lake?
Not usually. We are on ID-41 for Blanchard and Spirit Lake regularly and we group the jobs so the travel does not land on one small bid. A single short job on its own may cost a little more than the same job would in Newport, and we will tell you that when you call rather than surprise you on the estimate.
Nearby
We also work in Blanchard and Oldtown. All the towns we cover.