Why Should You Hire a Professional Excavation Services Company?

Does your construction project need excavation services? If you are not sure whether you need to hire a professional or rent excavation equipment and have a non-professional do it, we’re here to help.

Renting excavation equipment certainly sounds tempting because it’s cheaper than hiring professional contractors. However, is it the ideal choice?

If you’re wondering how to maximize professional excavation services and how they can benefit your construction project, today’s post is for you.

Go with the Pros

Employing the services of a professional excavation company is crucial. In this type of business, experience, expertise, and the right equipment matter a lot. You want to make sure you’re hiring the best contractor; this allows you to have peace of mind knowing that your project will be a success.

In this article, we’re going to discuss the essential things you need to know about hiring excavation contractors, how to find the right company, and how to vet them properly.

Professional Excavation Contractors Have the Right Equipment

Excavation tools and equipment are not something any other person has lying around in their garage or work shed. Also, you need special permits to be able to operate this type of machinery.

When you hire a professional contractor, there is little to no risk involved because they know how to operate excavation equipment safely. They will also know what specific type of excavation services you need for your project.

Professional excavation services contractors have good machinery and equipment.

Professionals Know How to Do the Job Right

It’s one thing to rent a piece of excavation equipment, but it’s a whole different story to operate it properly.

Professionals are trained, experienced, and certified to work excavation machinery. This allows you to have the assurance knowing that proper protocols and guidelines are always met.

Also, excavating projects always come with surprises. If you’re not careful or experienced enough, you may end up causing more damage than you can afford. Experienced and professional contractors are more familiar with these surprise encounters.

Professional Excavation Contractors Have Insurance

In any construction project, accidents can happen.

If you or someone you hired under the table gets into an accident, you might be liable to pay for medical expenses or equipment damages.

When you hire a reputable excavation company, they will have the necessary insurance that protects their clients from liability that may occur during the project.

What Are the Common Excavation Services?

In a construction or engineering project, before the process can even begin, there needs to be some sort of excavation to be done. This feat is typically required to prepare the site for construction or building.

Professional excavators have insurance, license, and bond.

Excavation contractors make use of specialized tools, equipment, or explosives to move rocks, soil, land, and other materials to prepare the site for building.

Contractors do excavation for several purposes. And the different types of excavation services are distinguished by the particular purpose. The excavation done is also classified by the type and material used to undertake it.

Here are some common types of excavation methods.

Stripping Excavation

Stripping is a excavation method that centers more around clearing or uncluttering a spacious area – rather than digging a trench or pit.

Before most construction or building projects can even occur, the construction site will most likely require clearing. Topsoil, rocks, sand, gravel, and other materials need to be removed to make way for land grading.

In such cases, stripping excavation will also involve freeing or clearing away massive swaths of different kinds of excavated materials.

Channel Excavation

This type of excavation entails taking out soils, gravels, rocks, and other materials from drainage, ditches, channels, and other related places for many different purposes.

Often, specialists do channel excavation undertake this project to improve the flow of water or increase the capacity of it. Doing so helps prevent incidents of flooding. It can also, alternately, eliminate any sediment buildup or water stagnation.

Roadway Excavation

This type of excavation is done for several different reasons and purposes. For instance, soil, rocks, gravel, and other materials need to be removed to make way for a roadway construction project.

However, the rocks, soil, gravel, and other materials removed during the excavation can also be utilized in the construction of the roadway or for constructing embankments.

In other cases, unsuitable or incompatible slope materials are removed and excavated. In turn, other excavated materials from a different site or brought in to replace these removed materials.

Drainage/Structure Excavation

Drainage pertains to proper water navigation away from certain areas. Drainage could include trenches, ditches, storm drains, drainage for runoff, or agricultural drainage, and so on. It could also include other structures related to carrying water away to prevent water pooling or water damage.

Drainage is an example of excavation services.

Drainage excavation is done to make way for funneling water away from crops/agricultural, residential structures, infrastructure, or other sites or locations that could be damaged by water.

Borrow Excavation

In most types of excavation projects, rock, soil, and certain other materials are taken out to make way to construct a structure, parking lot, or other establishments.

However, borrow excavation is a type of excavation project that does the opposite of that. In this type of process, materials such as rock, gravel, or soil are removed from a pit or borrow (which is also called a sandbox) to be utilized in a separate location.

These materials are typically used for land grading, mixing, or filling with other construction materials such as cement, concrete, or other examples.

Bridge Excavation

An excavation specialist will do bridge excavation to make way for constructing, yes, you guessed it, bridges. This type of service revolves around removing rock, soil, and other materials that could impede building the substructures, foundations, and support structures needed to build the bridge.

Earth Excavation

This is a type of excavation project that focuses on the actual materials being taken out instead of the aim of the excavation service. As you know, with excavation, the actual process relates to taking out soil, which is the essential material located underneath the topsoil.

Also, excavation could pertain to removing the earth to make way for laying down a structural foundation for a building, creating a drainage ditch, or any other construction or engineering project that requires excavation.

Dredge Excavation

Some sediments could deposit in waterways. This event could lead to the waterways being impassable, over time. To remedy this, dredge excavation, which is also called, dredging is done.

Dredging is a type of excavation that happens underwater. Typically, dredging is done in shallow waterways, shallow oceans, or rivers. This type of excavation takes place to remove any sediment.

When you do dredging, it’s easier for boat traffic to navigate and pass without any issues, delay, or problems of getting stuck.

Muck Excavation

One of the other types of excavation services is muck excavation. This is a material-based excavation, similar to earth excavation. In this case, it’s muck that is being moved or removed.

Muck is typically soil, water, mud, or a combination of those. It’s considered undesirable and commonly classified as a hindrance when it comes to construction projects; that’s why it needs to be removed and excavated.

Muck excavation can also be done to either take out the muck and move it to another location or spread the water and soil evenly, so there’s no water pooling in the one area.

Footing Excavation

Heavy buildings need to be properly built, so they don’t collapse or sink. Footings are used for this purpose. They are foundation structures that provide support to buildings, bridges, and other structures by evenly spreading the weight or the load of the structure throughout the site.

Excavation services need professionals.

Footing excavation takes place after the land grading process of a construction site. Only after grading can footing excavation safely begin.

This type of excavation project is considered to be more precise than certain other types of. It’s because footing excavation entails pouring the concrete for them. They are poured and left to dry and set properly.

Topsoil Excavation

Not to be confused with stripping, topsoil excavation is an excavation process done to remove topsoil, which consists of the soil’s uppermost surface where vegetation can be found, as the name suggests.

However, topsoil excavation is undertaken because of the specific material being excavated, which is the topsoil.

Rock Excavation

This is another method of material-based excavation. When a rocky surface characterizes a site or location, it may impede the constriction project. Thus, contractors utilize this excavation method to handle the issue.

This type of excavation is typically considered as one of the more challenging excavation services. The breaking up and removal of rocks may require specific specialized equipment to do the job correctly.

Underground Excavation

As the name implies, this excavation method takes place underground, as opposed to above ground. This method requires specialized tools, techniques, and materials to remove the materials underneath safely and effectively.

In some cases, horizontal tunnels and diagonal or vertical shafts (or perhaps even a combination of those) are excavated for specific construction projects such as building canals, sewage systems, subways, underground passages, roadways, and other related projects.