Davidson County · 9.6 miles from Brentwood
Excavation and grading in Nashville
Metro Water Services has a specific test for when a job needs a grading permit. Small city lots can pass it, as long as you check all four parts.
Do I need a Metro grading permit?
You don’t, if your job meets every one of Metro’s conditions:
- 10,000 square feet or less disturbed
- 100 cubic yards or less of material moved
- Fill under 5 feet deep
- Outside the 100-year floodplain, and not in a watershed draining to a sinkhole
Miss any one and you’re in the permit process. Reviews are at 615-862-7225, and issuance at 615-880-2420. On a residential yard, the cubic yards are the one people underestimate: a modest regrade can move more than 100 of them.
How steep can the finished slope be?
Metro wants final slopes no steeper than 3:1 and fill slopes no steeper than 5:1, unless calculations justify otherwise. A 5:1 fill takes 5 feet of run for every foot it rises, which is a lot of yard. When the room isn’t there, the answer is often a retaining wall or less fill.
What do you do in Nashville?
All eight lines of work, on residential and commercial sites. In older Nashville neighborhoods, we get called for wet crawlspaces, French drains and broken drain lines. Commercial sites need excavation, utility trenching and demolition. Downtown is 9.6 miles from Brentwood, and the rest of the county sits inside our 30 miles: Oak Hill at 2.5, Berry Hill at 6, Antioch at 8.6, Bellevue at 10.7, Hermitage at 13.9, and on up to Joelton at 22.
The company names Nashville on its Facebook page, and its listing there carries a 37013 address. Send a picture with the neighborhood, and we’ll tell you whether it looks like a permit job.
Answers
Nashville questions
When do I need a grading permit in Nashville?
When your job goes past any of Metro’s limits. You’re exempt only if you disturb 10,000 square feet or less, move 100 cubic yards or less, place fill under 5 feet deep, and stay out of the 100-year floodplain and any watershed draining to a sinkhole.
How steep can a graded slope be in Davidson County?
Metro Water Services wants final slopes no steeper than 3:1 and fill slopes no steeper than 5:1, unless calculations justify something else. A 5:1 fill slope needs 5 feet of run per foot of height, so on a small city lot it changes the plan. Ask at the estimate.
Who do I call about a Metro grading permit?
Metro Water Services’ stormwater group: 615-862-7225 for reviews and 615-880-2420 for permit issuance. They’ll want to know the disturbed area, the volume moved, the fill depth and whether the site touches floodplain or a sinkhole watershed. We can pull those numbers together from the plan.
Which Nashville neighborhoods do you work in?
All of them, since Davidson County sits inside our 30-mile radius: Oak Hill at 2.5 miles from Brentwood, Berry Hill at 6, Antioch, Bellevue, Hermitage, Madison, Old Hickory, Whites Creek and Joelton at 22. Downtown is about 9.6 miles away. Metro’s rules apply across the whole county.