Grading, Clearing and Site Work
Before a house, a shop, a driveway or a lawn can exist, somebody has to deal with the dirt. Trees and brush come off, stumps come out, the ground is shaped so water runs where it should, and the spot where something will be built is brought to the right height and packed tight. Done well, nobody thinks about it again. Done badly, it shows up for years as a wet yard, a cracked slab or a driveway that washes out.
We clear lots, grade land, prepare building pads and drive beds, and install silt fence for property owners, builders and businesses around Greenwood.
Land and lot clearing
Clearing jobs range from a single overgrown house lot to several acres of cut-over pine. The work includes taking down and removing trees and brush inside the area you want opened up, grubbing stumps and roots, raking out the debris and leaving ground that can be graded. Stumps matter more than people expect. One left under a future slab or drive will rot and leave a hole, so anything inside a building or paving footprint comes out by the root.
We mark the limits with you before anything is cut. Most owners want to keep certain shade trees, a buffer along the road or a screen on the property line, and it is much easier to flag those on day one than to wish for them later. Debris is hauled off or handled on site according to what the property and local rules allow.
Clearing is also the first step for people reclaiming a neglected corner of their land, opening a homesite on family acreage or widening the path for a new drive. We do a good share of that on acreage out toward Hodges and on rural tracts on every side of the county.
Grading and pad prep
Rough grading moves the bulk of the dirt: cutting high spots, filling low ones and shaping the lot so it drains. Finish grading is the careful pass that brings the surface to its final lines and leaves it smooth enough to pave, seed or sod.
A building pad is more demanding than it looks. Red Piedmont clay is an expansive soil that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, and fill dirt that is simply pushed into place will settle for years. So topsoil and organic material are stripped first. Fill is placed in thin layers and each layer is compacted before the next goes on. The pad is brought to the height the builder needs and extended past the footprint so the edges are as firm as the middle. Clay that is too wet to compact is dried out or replaced, not buried.
Water decides the rest. With about 47 inches of rain a year, a lot of it in sudden summer downpours, every graded site needs positive slope away from the building and a planned route for runoff, whether that is a swale, a ditch or a pipe. On a lot with real fall, the grading plan may call for a wall and drain line to hold a cut bank, and it costs less to settle that while the equipment is already on site.
Before we dig or grade, buried utilities are located and marked.
Silt fence and erosion control
Bare clay does not stay put. One thunderstorm on a freshly graded lot can send red mud down the slope, across the neighbor's yard and into the road ditch. South Carolina's stormwater rules require silt fence and erosion control on land-disturbing sites, and Greenwood County reviews grading and land-disturbance plans for larger jobs. The state stormwater rules come from the SC Department of Environmental Services, the agency that took over this work from DHEC.
Silt fence only works when it is installed correctly. It runs along the low side of the disturbed area, following the contour, with the bottom of the fabric trenched into the ground and backfilled so water cannot slip under it. Stakes go on the downhill side at close spacing, and the ends are turned uphill so runoff ponds behind the fence and drops its silt instead of running around it.
We install silt fence on our own grading jobs and as a stand-alone service for builders and owners who need a site brought into compliance. A stone construction entrance keeps trucks from tracking mud onto the road, and disturbed ground is stabilized with stone, seed or straw as soon as grading is finished. If you already hold a permit or a plan, we build to it.
Site work for builders and owners
For builders, we take a lot from trees to a staked, compacted pad with the drive roughed in and erosion control up, and we come back for final grade when the structure is finished. For commercial owners, site work includes parking and drive areas graded for paving, drainage corrections and pads for equipment or outbuildings.
For homeowners it is usually one piece of a larger plan: a pad for a metal building, a bed for a new driveway, a yard regraded so it stops flooding the carport, or a lot opened up for a home that will be built later. Some sites have an old slab or a fallen outbuilding in the way, and we can tear out what is already there before the grading starts.
Because we also pour concrete, the pad is graded by people who know exactly what the slab on top of it will need.
What drives the price
Clearing is priced on area and on what is growing there. Light brush goes quickly. Dense hardwood with big stumps does not. Whether debris can be handled on site or has to be hauled off makes a real difference. Grading depends on how much dirt has to move, whether the site balances or needs fill trucked in or spoil trucked out, how wet the ground is and how tight the final tolerances are. Silt fence is priced by the length installed. Access matters on all of it, since equipment has to reach the work.
Two lots of the same size can be very different jobs. Every job is priced after someone has walked the ground and measured it, with the price in writing before a truck is ordered. For site work that visit is not optional. Nobody can price dirt from a description.
Related
Retaining Walls and Drainage
Built with stone backfill and drain pipe so clay cannot push them over.
Demolition and Concrete Removal
The site is left graded and ready for whatever comes next.
Concrete and Grading Around Hodges
Grading and concrete for Hodges acreage along Highway 25, quoted on site.
Slabs, Drives and Grading in Saluda
Grading, clearing and storm cleanup for farm and home lots, with a free quote.
Walk the land with us
Use the quote form to send your name and phone number, and add the property address if you want us to find the lot ahead of time. In the message box, type what you plan to do with the land, roughly how much of it needs clearing or grading, and whether you already have a site plan or a permit. We will meet you on the property and follow up with a free written quote.
Open 24 hours. Call any time or send the form.