Civil Site Excavation Services
We specialize in strategic civil site earthwork and development projects contributing to the growth and sustainability of communities. Our focus on value, equity, and innovation lays the successful foundation and groundwork for vertical infrastructure. We collaborate closely with professionals such as general contractors, construction managers, architects, and engineers to assist them in bringing these projects to fruition, ensuring seamless execution and long-term impact.
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Components of Civil Site Excavation
Site Clearing & Grubbing
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Clearing:
This involves removing any surface debris like branches and leaves.
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Grubbing:
This focuses on the removal of underground components, primarily tree stumps and root systems, often requiring heavy machinery like excavators.​
Site Cut & Fill
Cut and fill excavation refers to a construction technique where earth material is removed from high areas ("cut") and used to fill in low areas ("fill") on a site, essentially leveling the terrain by balancing the amount of soil excavated with the amount needed to create embankments or other desired features, minimizing the need to import additional material from elsewhere; it's commonly used in building roads, railways, and canals.
Stockpile
In excavation, a stockpile is a pile of materials like soil, sand, gravel, or crushed stone that are removed during construction or mining projects. Stockpiles are an important resource in construction and ecology, and can be used for landscaping or restoring the area after construction.
Rough Grade
The process of leveling or reshaping the ground to achieve a specific slope or elevation. This can involve adding or removing soil.
Sub Grade
Sub grade is the first level of layers in a prepared surface of earth or rock that is leveled off to support a foundation, road or concrete slab. It is constructed to reasonably close conformance with the lines, grades, and cross-sections indicated on the plans, receives the base or surface material. In a fill section, the subgrade is the top of the embankment or the fill.
Final Grade
Final grade in excavating is a construction stage that involves preparing a site for landscaping and seeding.
Site Drainage and Erosion Control
Effective Drainage: Water can wreak havoc on a property if not properly managed. Site prep involves creating effective water management systems to divert water away from the foundation and mitigate the potential of erosion and water damage.
Rock Removal
Rock excavation is the process of removing rock masses from a job site to prepare the ground for construction projects. This involves breaking and removing rock using various methods, such as blasting, drilling, and using heavy machinery like excavators with hydraulic hammers.
Native Soil
In excavation, native ground refers to soil that has not been disturbed or moved, and is naturally occurring. Native soil is considered a reliable base for construction because it has settled over time and adapted to the local environmental conditions. Native soil is usually considered acceptable for use if it is firm and unyielding.
​ Using native soil can help reduce excavation, material handling, and labor costs.
Structural Fill
Structural fill is a compacted, engineered material made of soil, gravel, sand, and sometimes clay that's used to create a stable base for construction projects. It's often used in building foundations, road construction, embankments, and land reclamation. ​
Over Ex
"Over Ex"refers to "over excavation of soils," which means digging deeper than the planned excavation level, usually done when the existing soil at the initial planned depth is not stable enough to support the load of the structure, requiring the removal of unsuitable material and replacement with a stable and suitable structured material as backfill to ensure proper base or foundation support.
Import
Imported fill means fill transported onto a project site from an off-site location for use in the performance of work associated with a project site, including but not limited to, the backfilling of utility trenches and basements, construction of play areas and play fields, construction of engineered soil caps.
Export
In excavation, export refers to the process of removing dirt from a construction site. This may be necessary when there is an excess of dirt on the site, and the site work contractor needs to remove it.
Spoils
Spoils are the waste materials that are generated during excavation, and can include: soil, rock, fill material, contaminated soil, and building waste.
Balanced Site
A balanced site means that you will not need to import or export any dirt. (in other words, the amount of “cut” needed in your jobsite will equal the amount of the total “fill”).
Soil Stabilization
Soil stabilization is a technique that improves the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of soil to make it more suitable for construction. There are several methods for stabilizing soil. A common excavation method is the use of geotechnical fabrics along with engineered materials such as aggregate or structural fill. A geotechnical soils engineer may prescribe site specific measures to be taken to mitigate certain special circumstances.
Dewatering
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Dewatering in construction is the process of removing surface or groundwater from a construction site to allow for excavation and construction work:
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Dewatering is typically done by:
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Pumping water from wells, sumps, or wellpoints
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Sloping the work area to drain water away
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Drilling well-points into the ground to lower the water table.
Trenching
In excavation, "trenching" refers to the act of digging a narrow, deep excavation in the ground, where the depth is typically greater than the width, this work encompasses stricter safety regulations due to potential cave-in hazards.
Weights and Measurements
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Material
Calculating appropriate material weights and volumes is essential. In-bank soil, loose soil, wet soil, dry soil, and the many various soil types such as aggregate, sand, and clay will have individual volumes and weights resulting in different load factors.
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Equipment
Weights, measurements and the understanding of limitations of heavy equipment will directly impact the project's success rates. Our key considerations are: load capacities, weight, tolerances, clearances, dig depths, site stability, site maneuverability, lifting capacities, transporting capacities, load tie downs. Experience, knowledge and careful planning in effective and efficient use of heavy equipment optimizes project time, and minimizes manual labor. Our goal is to do all this while maximizing project and site safety, productivity and savings.
Shrink or Swell Factor
When excavated, soil typically swells due to the disruption of its natural compaction, resulting in an increase in volume compared to its in-situ state; this phenomenon is often referred to as the "swell factor". When calculating the quantities of soil estimation must account for both the swell and shrink factors to ensure accurate estimations.
Compaction
Compaction can be generally defined as the densification of soil by the removal of air and rearrangement of soil particles through the addition of mechanical energy. The energy exerted by compaction forces the soil to fill available voids, and the additional frictional forces between the soil particles improves the mechanical properties of the soil. Because a wide range of particles are needed in order to fill all available voids, well-graded soils tend to compact better than poorly graded soils.
When water is added to the soil, it functions as a softening agent on the soil particles, causing them to slide between one another more easily.
Compaction Methods
Here are some common methods of compaction:​
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Vibration compaction
Uses mechanical equipment like vibrating rollers or plate compactors to compress soil. Vibratory rollers are effective for granular soils, while static rollers are better for cohesive soils.
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Impact compaction
Uses equipment like rammers to apply force through repeated blows. This method is ideal for dense and cohesive soils.
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Pressure compaction
Uses heavy equipment to apply static pressure to the soil. This method is useful for compacting dense soils.
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Dynamic compaction
Involves repeatedly dropping a heavy weight on the ground surface at a regular grid of impact points. This technique is used to densify granular soil deposits.
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Vibro compaction
Uses vibrating probes inserted into the ground to rearrange grains into a denser state. This method can compact granular soils to depths of more than 30 meters.
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Grid rollers
Uses a cylindrical surface made of interconnected steel bars to break down large rocks and force them beneath compressed soil. Grid rollers are usually attached to the back of another vehicle.
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Mechanical compaction
Uses manual or mechanical methods like rodding, tamping, and concrete vibrators to agitate the concrete and expel entrapped air.
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Compaction by Saturation Compaction by saturation is the process of increasing the compaction of soil by increasing its water content.
Sieve Analysis
A sieve analysis (or gradation test) is a practice or procedure used in geology, civil engineering to assess the particle size distribution (also called gradation) of a granular material by allowing the material to pass through a series of sieves of progressively smaller mesh size and weighing the amount of material that is stopped by each sieve as a fraction of the whole mass.
The size distribution is often of critical importance to the way the material performs in use.
Soil Proctor
A soil proctor is a sample of soil that is tested to determine the best moisture content for compaction. The results of the test are used to determine the maximum density that can be achieved for a specific type of soil.