Properties within The Lakes community feature high groundwater tables and native soil profiles that contain significant moisture due to the surrounding lake networks. When unmanaged water trapped beneath a slab freezes during brutal Minnesota winters, it expands forcefully, generating immense upward pressure (known as frost heave) that easily breaks apart unreinforced or poorly prepped concrete. We counteract these subsurface forces by over-engineering our bases. We excavate deeply, lay down a thick course of clean crushed stone aggregate road base to facilitate drainage, and fortify our pours internally with heavy-duty structural steel rebar grids.