Excavation Contractor in Chatham, NY

Rolling farmland and hilltop house sites

Outside the village, Chatham is hay fields, pasture, horse farms and woodlots spread over rolling hills. A lot of new homes here go on a rise with a long view, set well back from the road on land that used to be farmed. That means stripping topsoil, digging a foundation into a hillside, and cutting a road in to reach it.

The ground under those fields is mostly stony glacial till: a dense mix of clay, sand and rock that digs fine but holds water and turns up boulders you have to deal with. On a slope, the cut side of a foundation can hit rock or seeping water while the downhill side needs fill. Planning the dig around that, instead of discovering it with the machine, keeps a job on schedule. The site preparation page explains how a house site gets prepped from bare field to footing forms.

What makes a long country driveway last?

A long driveway lasts when it's built on a stripped, compacted base with fabric wherever the ground is soft, several inches of crushed stone on top, a crown so water sheds to the sides, and ditches and culverts that carry runoff away. Most driveway failures on Chatham hills start with water running down the driveway itself.

Don't lay stone on topsoil and call it done. It'll look fine for a season, then the stone sinks and the ruts start. A driveway climbing a hill also needs a way to get water off it every so often, or it turns into a streambed in the first heavy storm. Justin looks at where the water comes from before he picks a route. Read more on gravel driveway installation.

Septic systems, wells and trenches on rural lots

Most homes outside the village run on their own well and septic system, and plenty of those systems are older than the people living with them. Tanks crack, baffles rot, and leach fields clog and start showing up as a soggy, smelly patch of lawn. Replacing a system usually needs a design and a permit before any digging happens, and then the excavation has to follow that plan closely: tank depth, pipe pitch and field layout all matter.

Rural lots also mean long trenches: power to a barn, a water line to a stock tank, a feed to a standby generator. Each one has to dodge the septic field and the well. Justin gets existing lines marked first and digs the route you've agreed on. See septic system installation and utility trenching.

Excavation in Chatham, NY for wet fields and low spots

Rolling land collects water in the dips. A field that's dry on top can have a low swale that stays wet into June, and hillsides often have springs that pop out right where someone wants a lawn or a building. Before you build near a wet spot, figure out where that water is coming from.

Sometimes a curtain drain on the uphill side is enough to cut it off. Sometimes the better move is to shape a swale and let the water pass through, or dig the low spot out into a small pond that uses the water instead of fighting it. The yard drainage page covers the options, and Justin can tell you which fits your ground when he walks it.

Timing matters too. A wet spot you see in April may be bone dry by August, so if you're buying land, walk it in spring before you decide where the house goes.