Our Illinois shop covers the water north and northwest of Chicago: the Chain O'Lakes, the inland lakes of Lake and McHenry County, and the Lake Michigan shoreline from Winnetka up to Waukegan. Bulkheads, seawalls, piers, docks, boathouses, retaining walls, and our own pile driving.
Shore Protect Construction
1425 Sandpebble Dr
Wheeling, IL 60090
Phone: (281) 501-7940
Email: hi@shoreprotect.com
Hours: Monday–Sunday, 6:00 AM – 4:00 PM
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Northern Illinois shorelines fail in a way coastal walls do not. Boat wake works the wall all summer on the Chain O'Lakes, and then ice grips it and lifts it every winter. That freeze-and-wake cycle is why timber walls here give out in fifteen to twenty years, and it is why we drive piles deeper than a catalog spec calls for and tie walls back with proper deadman anchors instead of face-nailed whalers.
On a bank with room to slope, a vertical wall is often the wrong answer entirely — riprap armor stone over filter fabric, keyed in at the toe, outlasts a wall and has nothing to lean or rot. We will tell you which one your site is, on site.
Chain O'Lakes and inland lakes: Fox Lake, Ingleside, Round Lake, Antioch, Lake Villa, Wauconda, McHenry, Crystal Lake, Island Lake, Lake Zurich, Barrington.
North Shore and Lake Michigan: Winnetka, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Waukegan.
Near the shop: Wheeling, Buffalo Grove, Arlington Heights, Northbrook, Glenview.
For the full state picture, see marine construction in Illinois. Working the Indiana lakefront instead? That is our Munster, Indiana location.
We work the whole northern Illinois waterfront: the Chain O'Lakes (Fox Lake, Antioch, Ingleside, Round Lake), the inland lakes of Lake and McHenry County, and the Lake Michigan shoreline from Winnetka up to Waukegan. Wheeling is where the shop is, not the limit of the service area.
Three signs mean the wall is losing backfill: joints opening at the seams, a line of sunken ground a few feet inland, and a scoured trench at the toe underwater. One of them, caught early, is usually tiebacks and toe protection. All three, with the wall bowed out, is a replacement - patching a wall that has already lost its soil buys a season at most.
Marine-grade vinyl sheet pile, steel sheet pile, CCA-treated timber, poured concrete, riprap armor stone, and gabion. The choice is driven by the site - water depth at the face, soil type behind the wall, ice and boat wake exposure - not by preference. On a sloped bank with room, riprap often outperforms a vertical wall and costs less over its life.
Usually yes. Pier and seawall permits come from two agencies: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, whose Bartlett office covers northeastern Illinois. Work in public waters, including Lake Michigan, goes through IDNR's Office of Water Resources on a joint state and federal application. Your municipality or county may require its own approval on top of that. Note that the Fox Waterway Agency, which manages the Fox River and Chain O'Lakes, does not regulate piers or seawalls. We identify the permit path during the on-site estimate so it is not a surprise later.
Yes. The on-site assessment and written estimate are free: we measure the shoreline, check depth and soil at the face, and hand over a scope with materials named by grade and pile depth. If any line in it is an allowance rather than a firm price, it says so.
The site visit and the written estimate are free. We measure the shoreline, check water depth and soil at the face, look at what is happening behind the wall, and hand over a scope with materials named by grade and pile depth. If a line in it is an allowance rather than a firm price, it says so. Request a site visit or call (281) 501-7940.
Shore Protect