Brentwood Dirt Works · Brentwood, TN
Excavation
Cut, load, move and backfill, on house lots and commercial sites, with the locates called in before anything breaks ground.
What do you excavate?
Building sites, walls, drainage runs, utility lines and anything else that has to come out of the ground. Soil backfilling and compaction, earthmoving and regrading are all part of the same work, so the hole doesn’t get left for someone else to close. Our equipment list runs from bulldozers and graders to excavators and a tracked skid steer, and a roller finishes the compaction.
What happens when the bucket hits rock?
You find out what kind of lot you bought. USDA’s description of Maury silt loam, one of the soils mapped across Williamson County, has limestone below it that’s “cavernous.” Armour, another of them, puts bedrock more than 5 feet down. Those two can sit close together, and an estimate from a picture can’t tell you which one you’re on.
When we hit it, a hammer on the excavator breaks it up and the machines move it. We tell you when that changes the job, rather than sending a bill that does it for us. Sinkholes get handled differently, and in Smyrna one on the property brings in a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation permit.
Who calls 811 and handles the locates?
We do. Tennessee law wants at least 3 working days’ notice, not counting weekends and holidays, and the ticket lasts 15 calendar days after its start date. The tolerance zone is the width of a line plus 2 feet on each side. Those numbers come straight from Tennessee 811, and if a job runs long the ticket has to be renewed. We also carry GPS locators, because what’s in the ground doesn’t always match what the marks say.
Commercial or residential?
Both. A commercial list reads demolition, excavation, grading, land clearing, trenching and underground utilities. On the residential side, most of what we dig is for drains, walls, and pads. At the small end, one customer called about a single broken pipe, and the crew hand dug the last of it to give full access.
Answers
Excavation: common questions
How much does excavation cost?
There is no honest flat number for excavation, because rock, access and haul-off move the price more than the size does. We price each job after seeing it, and a picture is often enough to start. Two reviewers say our price came in under the other quotes they got, one at half.
How long do dig tickets last in Tennessee?
A Tennessee 811 ticket is valid for 15 calendar days after its legal start date. You have to give at least 3 working days’ notice before digging, and a ticket can be postdated up to 10 working days. We call it in before any machine breaks ground.
What happens if you hit rock during excavation?
We bring a hammer, break it out and move it. Limestone sits close under a lot of Williamson County, and USDA describes the rock below Maury soils as cavernous. One barn site here had a substantial amount of it, and the job still ended with a compacted pad.
What equipment do you use for excavation?
Bulldozers, graders, excavators and a tracked skid steer, plus a roller for compaction and a hammer for rock. The survey side is rotary lasers, pipe lasers, digital levels and GPS locators. Which machine shows up depends on access, and a tight backyard gets a smaller one than an open lot.
Do you do commercial excavation in Nashville?
Yes, commercial sites are on our regular list alongside residential: excavation, grading, trenching, underground utilities and demolition. Nashville sits 9.6 miles from our Brentwood base. Metro Water Services decides there whether a job needs a grading permit, and the site’s floodplain status is part of that call.