We do land grading and site prep around Florence, SC. Most jobs start the same way. You have a spot for a house, a shed or a mobile home, and the ground is not ready. It sits rough, or it holds water in the low places. We cut down the high spots and fill the low ones. Then we shape the whole area flat and build the pad where the structure will sit. A track skid steer and a tractor do the grading. The mini excavator handles the digging and the heavier dirt moving. If the lot still has trees or brush on it, we handle the land clearing first.
Florence sits in the coastal plain, and the ground here runs flat. Sandy loam on top, clay underneath. Water soaks in fast until it hits that clay, then it sits. Add about 45 inches of rain a year and you get yards and lots that stay soggy for days. Grading fixes a lot of that. We give the ground a steady fall away from the house or the pad, so rain runs off instead of pooling. We also shape shallow swales to carry water to a ditch or a low corner. Every estimate is free, and we come out and look at the site first.
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A pad is a flat, solid piece of ground built to hold something up. A house, a shed, a barn or a garage all need one. We start by stripping the topsoil and roots off the footprint. That soft material settles later, so it comes off first. If an old structure sits on the spot, the tear-down and debris haul-off happens before any dirt work. Stumps in the pad area come out as part of the work. We also do stump removal on its own. Then we cut into the high side and move that dirt to the low side. We size the pad wider than the building so there is room to work around the edges.
Grading happens in two passes. Rough grading moves the bulk of the dirt and gets the shape close. Finish grading is the slow pass. It smooths the surface and sets the exact fall you want. The track skid steer does most of the finish work. It spreads its weight and floats over soft ground. We haul fill dirt in with the dump trailer on smaller jobs. When a pad needs more than that, we line up truck loads for it. If your builder or engineer has compaction specs or a soil report, they set those numbers and we build the pad to that plan.
Manufactured homes are a big part of housing around here. In Florence County, close to one in five homes is a mobile or manufactured home. That comes from Census survey data. It is common work for us. The job runs in a set order. The lot gets cleared down to bare dirt where the home will sit. We cut and build the pad, flat and a few inches above the ground around it. That extra height keeps rain from running back under the home. We shape the ground around the pad so water heads away from it on every side.
Setup crews need more than a level pad. They need to get the home onto the lot. We rough in the drive and clear the path to the pad. That way the truck can back the sections in without sinking. Once the home is set, that same path can become your finished gravel driveway. The federal setup standard calls for a half inch of fall per foot away from the home. That applies to the first ten feet. We grade to that, and we cut a swale if the lot is too flat to shed water on its own.
Standing water is the call we get most after a wet stretch. A soggy low spot in the yard, or a shed sitting in a puddle. The cause is usually the same. The lot is flat, so the water has nowhere to run off to. The clay under the sand will not soak it up fast enough. Fixing it means changing the shape of the ground. We find the low spot, then find a place lower than it. We grade a steady fall between the two. Sometimes that is a wide, gentle tilt across the whole yard. Sometimes it is a shallow swale cut over to a ditch.
Water around a house needs somewhere to go. The residential building code calls for six inches of drop in the first ten feet away from the walls. Plenty of older yards in the Pee Dee have lost that fall over the years. Dirt settles, and mulch beds build up until the ground creeps back toward the house. We build the ground up next to the house and taper it down and away. That same yard leveling pass takes out the ruts and bumps at the same time. On bigger acreage we work at a larger scale. We shape a whole field or pasture so it drains toward a ditch line.
From the first walk of the property to the last pass of the grade, here is exactly how it goes.
We come see the actual job first: the structure, the brush, the ground under it, and how equipment gets in. Demo and land work price off what is really out there.
You get a free, no-obligation quote with a real number and a real plan: what comes down or gets cleared, where the debris goes, and when. It holds unless the scope changes.
The equipment shows up when we said and the job runs the way we quoted it: teardown, clearing, digging, grading. If something unexpected turns up, you hear about it right away, not on the bill.
When the work is done we go over the property together. Debris hauled the way we agreed, grades draining the right way, the site left clean. Done means you say it is done.
Common questions about grading & site prep across Florence & the Pee Dee. Don't see yours? Give us a call and ask.
We handle residential excavation around Florence with a mini excavator and a track skid steer. Root digs, buried debris, pad cuts and low spots that hold water.
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We cut and build new gravel driveways, and regrade drives that have washed out or gone to potholes. Work runs from short residential drives to long farm lanes.
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We tear down houses, mobile homes, barns and outbuildings around Florence. The debris gets hauled off and the lot is left clean.
View DetailsThe house comes down, the debris leaves on the trailer, and the lot gets graded flat. The same people handle the whole sequence, start to finish.
A mini excavator, track skid steer, tractor and dump trailer, matched to residential lots and rural acreage. Big enough for real work, small enough to spare your yard.
We look at the property in person and price what is really there. The estimate is free, and it holds unless the scope changes.
Based in Florence, covering Darlington, Hartsville, Sumter, Marion, Lake City and the towns between. Most jobs sit within an hour of home base.
What land grading and yard leveling cost, worked examples by size, and why flat Pee Dee lots with clay under the sand need fall built into them.
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The full site prep sequence for a manufactured home in SC: who does what, what the pad must meet, what each phase costs, and the Florence County steps.
Read more →What a gravel driveway costs in South Carolina, delivered stone prices near Florence, and why crown and fabric decide how long a Pee Dee drive lasts.
Read more →What it costs to demolish a house, the asbestos rule most single-family teardowns are exempt from, and how permits work in Florence County.
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What it costs to demolish and remove a mobile home, why scrap value never covers it, and the SC title step owners forget after the teardown.
Read more →A structure that needs to come down, an overgrown lot, stumps in the way, ground that holds water, a pad or driveway that needs building? Call or send the form. We come look at the property and hand you a free quote with a real number on it.
Tell us about the job. We will get right back to you.
