The Five Steps of Excavation

Oakland Excavating Bay Area

Construction site excavation can be a very difficult process sometimes, in the Bay Area and elsewhere, whether it’s for a home, an office building, or for public construction projects like road buildings. Soil conditions can cause problems, close quarters with other buildings can create logistical issues, and any number of other obstacles can pop up to hinder the process.

5 Steps of Excavation

To overcome whatever hindrances do occur and complete a construction project successfully, there are five main steps which have to be accomplished:

  • Rough-Staking – this process is necessary to identify approximately where a home or other building will be situated. If trees or other obstacles will have to be moved, rough-staking will make this more obvious by placing stakes around the designated area of where the structure will be built. 
  • Clearing – if your excavation site has vegetation or tree roots that have to be removed, this happens during the clearing phase. If there’s a significant amount of this material, you may need to decide where all the debris has to be hauled to.
  • Excavation – any building that requires a basement will have to be excavated, and the dirt which is removed will have to go somewhere. You can count on heavy equipment like a bulldozer or backhoe to be involved in this phase, as well as dump trucks to haul away fill.
  • Rough-Grading – some of the dirt which was removed during excavation can be back-filled around the home to establish the right pitch toward the curb, for drainage purposes. Then you’ll also have to overlay that fill dirt with the richer topsoil that was removed, so that grass and shrubbery can grow well around the home.
  • Erosion Control – some locations have regulations about not allowing topsoil to be eroded away by runoff from heavy rains, so you may have to investigate local restrictions on this. In any case though, steps will have to be taken to prevent your cleared plot of land from having soil washed away and possibly into adjacent properties. This ceases to be an issue once grass is growing on the land, but until that happens, the effects of erosion must be accounted for.

Contact a Bay Area Excavating Company

For any kind of construction excavation project you have in mind, the excavation experts to call are at Lassiter Excavating, Inc. Whether you need demolition in the Bay Area, building site excavation, or some kind of foundation work, the clear choice for all excavation work in the region is Lassiter. Since 1989, this family owned and operated business has provided excavation expertise and outstanding customer service to commercial and residential clients in the Bay Area. Call us at (925)-420-0146
or fill out our contact form here for an estimate, or with any questions you may have about a project.