The part of the project everything else sits on
Site work is the foundation of everything built on top of it, and it is the phase where mistakes are cheapest to fix and most expensive to leave. We provide excavation services for residential, commercial and new construction projects, from clearing a lot to cutting a building pad to trenching for utilities.
On the residential side that usually means a pad for an addition, a garage or an outbuilding, excavation for a foundation, driveway excavation, digging for a pool, or backfilling and grading after a pool comes out. On new construction it means clearing, rough grading, pad prep to the plan elevations, and leaving the site clean and ready for the next trade. Finish grading is its own step and its own skill, because a site that is close enough on rough grade can still hold water once it is finished.
Grading is the part homeowners underestimate. Excavation removes material. Grading shapes what is left to a specific slope so it drains correctly and supports what sits on it. Digging a trench is excavation. Reshaping a back yard so rain runs away from the house instead of toward it is grading. In practice they happen together on almost every job, because once ground has been opened it has to be finished to a proper slope or the site will hold water and settle unevenly.
We review project plans and verify utility locations before we start, mark the excavation limits, cut to the required grades and elevations, compact soils where compaction is called for, and leave the site clean. On a commercial or new construction job that means the next phase can begin without anybody having to fix our work first.
One customer hired us for earth work after their pool went in and described us as very communicative, affordable and friendly. That is the target on site work, where the homeowner usually cannot tell from looking whether the job was done right, and has to be able to trust the person who did it.
Excavation removes material. Grading shapes what is left. Almost every job needs both, and the second one is what decides whether the site holds water.
The distinction that matters