Hartford excavation with the services located first
Reduced level digs, foundation trenches, basements and muckaway. Underground services are located before the bucket goes in, and what comes out is classified before it is loaded rather than after.
What the ground turns out to be decides a large part of the cost, and it is decided by testing rather than by looking. Clean subsoil goes one way and is cheap. Made ground, anything with hydrocarbons in it and anything from a plot with an industrial history goes somewhere else entirely and costs several times as much per tonne.
Discovering that after the lorries are booked is how a dig doubles. On any site with a past we test first, classify the material, and price the disposal on the classification rather than on hope. Where contamination is found, remediation is handled under abatement rather than quietly loaded out.
Unsupported excavation faces collapse without warning and are one of the most reliably fatal things on any construction site. A face that stood all morning is not evidence that it is safe; ground fails when water moves through it or when a machine tracks along the top.
Depth, soil type, groundwater and what is standing near the edge all decide what support is needed, and shoring, battering or a trench box is a design decision rather than a judgement call made in the hole. Where the dig is near a building the loading on its foundations changes as soon as the ground beside it is removed, and that needs checking before rather than after.
Because disposal is priced by what the material is. Clean subsoil is cheap and contaminated made ground is several times more, so testing first is what keeps a dig from doubling.
Always. Line locates are called in and we work to the marks. Where something crosses the dig we agree protection or diversion before starting.
Less than people assume, and the answer depends on soil, water and what is near the edge. Support is a design decision, not something judged from the top of the hole.
Then the effect on its foundations is checked before we start. Removing ground beside a footing changes what it is bearing on, and that is not something to find out afterwards.
Often, if it is clean and there is a use for it. Reusing it as backfill saves both disposal and import, and we will say when the classification allows it.
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