Excavation Contractors in Cleveland, OH

Excavation contractors in Cleveland deal with conditions that surprise people who have only dug in sand or gravel. Most yards here sit on glacial till that has weathered into sticky, clay-rich subsoil, the lake keeps the air wet, and the frost season is long. A trench that looks simple on paper can fill with groundwater overnight. We handle grading, basement and footing digs, sewer lateral excavation, French drains, residential demolition and pad excavation for homeowners and small builders across the city and Cuyahoga County.

What the soil maps say

The USDA soil series descriptions for this region are blunt. The Mahoning series, formed in low-lime till derived from shale and siltstone, has a subsoil of silty clay loam to clay at 35 to 45 percent clay. It is classed as somewhat poorly drained, with a perched water table 6 to 12 inches below the surface from October through June in most years. The related Ellsworth series is a little better drained, but still carries perched water 11 to 24 inches down from November to May. Water moves slowly through both. For a homeowner that explains soggy yards, wet basements and backfill that keeps sinking. For us it decides when to dig, how to dewater, and what to backfill with.

Bluffs, ravines and the escarpment

Cleveland sits on a series of irregular bluffs parallel to the lake, cut by the Cuyahoga River, Big Creek and Euclid Creek. The shoreline is about 569 feet above sea level, Public Square about 650 feet and Hopkins Airport about 791 feet. Farther south and east, the Portage Escarpment rises 200 to 300 feet in a single step between the Cuyahoga and Rocky rivers, and it is cut by ravines. Lots near a ravine edge or on the escarpment slope need a different plan than flat lots on the lake plain: smaller cuts, no fill dumped over the edge, and water carried down in pipe rather than across the slope.

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Ohio's dig law

Under Ohio Revised Code 3781.28, anyone excavating must notify the utility protection service at least two working days before digging, not counting the day of the call, and not more than 16 calendar days ahead. Utilities then have two working days to mark their lines: red for electric, yellow for gas, orange for communications, blue for water and green for sewer. We file that request for every job, premark the dig area in white, and wait for marks before the bucket goes in.

Weather we plan around

Cleveland Hopkins averages 63.8 inches of snow a season and about 41 inches of precipitation a year, and January's average low is about 22 degrees. Lake-effect snow typically runs from mid-November until the lake freezes over in late January or early February. Frozen ground is hard on equipment and makes clean backfill impossible, while spring thaw leaves the clay at its wettest. We schedule grading and drainage work for drier stretches, and keep winter work to jobs that cannot wait, like a failed sewer lateral.

What a typical job looks like

• Site visit, measurements and a look at where water goes
• Written, itemized estimate
• Ohio 811 request and any city permits
• Access protected with mats or plywood
• Digging, with spoil on tarps or loaded straight into trucks
• Stone, pipe or forms as the job requires
• Backfill compacted in lifts and the surface regraded
• Hauling, cleanup and seed or straw where lawn was disturbed

Who we work for

Most of our work is for homeowners: a wet basement, a sewer backup, a garage that needs to come down, or a yard that turns into a pond every April. We also dig for remodelers, pool and landscape companies, and small builders who need a reliable machine and operator for footings, utility trenches and finish grading.

We work across Cuyahoga County, which holds 38 cities and 19 villages on the south shore of Lake Erie, and into Lake, Lorain, Summit and Medina counties. Lakefront suburbs such as Lakewood, Rocky River and Bay Village sit on the lake plain. The Heights suburbs, Solon and Brecksville climb onto the escarpment and plateau, with ravines and creeks. Postwar suburbs like Parma, North Olmsted and Garfield Heights have tens of thousands of homes built within a few decades of each other. Each town page explains what changes from one place to the next.