Below grade,
start to finish.
We self-perform five lines of work — site prep, grading, demolition, underground utilities, and land clearing. Our own people, our own iron, no surprise margins.
Most projects we touch are between half an acre and forty. We're a 60-person shop with thirty pieces of iron — large enough to keep three or four sites running at once, small enough that the owners are still on jobsites every week.
What follows is everything we run crews for. If the work you need isn't here, the last section tells you who we'd send you to instead.
Site preparation
Stripping topsoil, hauling vegetation, taking the site from "raw" to "ready to stake building corners." This is the work we got started doing in 2008 and it's still about a third of what we bid.
Clearing, demolition of existing structures if any, erosion control per SWPPP, rough grading, construction entrances and temporary roads. We strip and stockpile topsoil separately because most of you will want it back when we're done.
Grading & drainage
Finish grading directly off the civil engineer's surface model. Storm conveyance, detention basins, swales, and surface dressing.
If your civil drawings are good, we can usually skip the staking. If they're not, we'll model from scratch and check it back with you before we move iron. We don't take pour days lightly — if your slab inspector is showing up Thursday, we're not going to call you Wednesday afternoon.
Demolition
Structures, foundations, slabs, hardscape. Mostly residential and light commercial — anything up to about 25,000 sq ft of footprint.
We crush our own concrete on-site when there's enough volume to justify a portable crusher (around 200 tons). Below that we haul to MRA in Burlington, which is good recycled aggregate at a fair price. Asphalt mostly goes to the same place.
What we won't touch: anything with friable asbestos, suspected lead in soils above MTCA action levels, or above-grade demo over three stories. Call us anyway — we know who to send you to.
Underground & utilities
Water, sewer, storm, gas, and electrical service installs and connections. Trenching down to about 14 feet without shoring; deeper than that, we bring in Northwest Shoring.
Locate coordination through 811 (you'd be amazed how many GCs forget this), compaction in 8-inch lifts to 95% standard Proctor, density-tested by ASA at our cost. We're TPC-certified for confined-space entry, which matters in vault installs.
Land clearing
Tree removal, stump grinding, brush mulching, forestry mowing. Most of this work is rural acreage being prepped for homesites or pasture.
Two things to know up front. We'll always check for a critical areas overlay before we cut — if you're inside one, you need a clearing permit and so do we. And we do not burn slash; everything gets mulched on-site or hauled to Cedar Grove. The county hasn't issued a residential burn permit since 2019, and we've already factored that into our pricing.
Things we won't take on.
We've made bad bids on jobs we shouldn't have touched. Here's the short list, and who we'd send you to.
- Residential basements under 1,500 sq ft. High detail, low margin, and Pete Larsson at Larsson Site is genuinely better at them. (360) 555-0117.
- Anything inside the city limits of Bellingham. The permit timing turns a 4-week job into 14. Aiello Excavating is there, and they're good.
- Septic system installs. We can excavate and backfill them, but a licensed designer/installer needs to lead. We work alongside Hillside Septic on most of our rural jobs.
- Above-grade structural demolition over 3 stories. NW Demolition out of Tacoma has the boom for it; we don't.
- Anything with confirmed asbestos or lead-impacted soils. Licensed abatement first, then call us back.
The iron, by class.
Owned outright. Maintained at our yard. We rent when something specific is cheaper to rent than service for a single job.