This page is for a hole, a trench, or dirt that has to leave. Culverts, pipe trenches, footer excavation, small ponds, stumps and root balls, and small demolition, with the spoil hauled off or spread where you want it. If what you need is a compacted elevation to build on, that is a building pad. If you need water to stop standing in the yard, that is grading. Both of those are things I do, on their own pages. Sunshine 811 gets called before every dig, two full business days ahead.
Free estimateCall (352) 932-3653
What I get called about
- A culvert to set under a drive, or a crushed one to replace
- Trench for a water line to the barn, an electric run, a drain line or a sleeve under a drive
- Footer excavation for a slab contractor or a building erector who wants the dirt done first
- A small pond, or an existing one that has silted in and needs cleaning out
- Stumps and root balls that a mower or a bush hog will never deal with
- An old shed, carport, mobile home or slab that needs to come out
- A low area that has to be dug out and replaced because there is muck or organic ground in it
- Spoil piles somebody left, that need loading and hauling off
- A pit, a sump or a tank hole
- Ruts and old fill that need to be dug out before a pad can go on
Sunshine 811 gets called before every dig
Not most digs. Every dig, two full business days ahead, and the marks are good for thirty days.
Two things about this are worth knowing before you hire anybody, and I have not seen another outfit in this county say either one.
The homeowner exemption does not cover me. Florida's damage prevention law has an exemption, and it is for the property owner doing his own digging. It is not for somebody he hires. So it does not cover me, I do not pretend it does, and I do not let a customer tell me it is fine because it is his land.
811 does not mark private lines. They mark the utility-owned lines up to the meter. Your own water line out to the barn, your irrigation, your septic tank and drainfield, your propane run, the wire out to the well, the low voltage to the gate, the dog fence: none of that gets marked. If you know where they are, walk it with me and show me. If you do not, we go slower in those areas and I will say so before I start rather than after I have found one.
That second point is where most private property strikes actually happen, and it is entirely preventable by one conversation on the walk.
Trenching and bedding for your licensed installer
This is a scope line, not a hedge, and I want it plain.
I dig the trench, bed the pipe, backfill it and compact it. I do that for plumbers, septic contractors, electricians, well drillers and irrigation outfits all over this county, and I do it for homeowners whose installer would rather run pipe than run a machine.
What I do not do is tap mains, set meters, or connect to an energized system, and I do not install septic systems. Those are licensed scopes in Florida, they belong to the person whose license is on the permit, and pretending otherwise would put both of us in a bad spot. That person handles the connection. I handle the dirt around it.
If you are a plumber or a septic contractor reading this, that is exactly the pitch: I am the guy who does your dirt, on your schedule, with 811 already called.
What good trench work looks like: the right width for what is going in it, bedding material under the pipe rather than pipe laid on rock, backfill placed and compacted in lifts instead of pushed in and left to settle, and the surface restored so you are not looking at a scar across the yard for the next two years. Trench that settles is the sign nobody compacted the backfill.
Culverts, and the drainage structures under a drive
Nearly every rural drive in this county crosses a ditch, and the culvert is where most of them fail.
Undersized pipe backs water up onto the neighbor. No headwall and the ends erode until the pipe is sitting in air. Crushed pipe from somebody driving over it before it had cover. Pipe set too high, so the ditch holds water on both sides of your drive and the crossing you paid for is a dam.
I size it, set it, bed it, cover it properly and finish the ends, with a concrete headwall or mitered end where the situation calls for one. If your drive comes off a county road, the county has its own requirements for that connection and I will tell you what I know and tell you to confirm it with them rather than guessing on your behalf.
Full driveway construction lives on the driveways and access roads page. This page is for the pipe itself, and for culverts that have nothing to do with a driveway: field crossings, pasture access, and pipe under a farm road.
Ponds
Small ponds, yes. Understand two things before you start pricing it.
One: the parcel gets checked before a machine moves. Any real pond work touches stormwater rules and can touch wetland rules, and wetland permits in Florida come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rather than the state. If any part of your ground is wetland, that is a conversation you have before you dig, not after. I am not the permit office and I do not file for you, but I will tell you what I see when I walk it and I will not put a machine in the ground on a parcel that has an obvious problem.
Two: a hole in this sand does not hold water. That is the part people find out the expensive way. Dig a pond in clean ridge sand and it drains straight through, and what you own is a dry bowl with a nice shape. Holding water takes something at the bottom that stops it, which around here usually means clay. So the budget is the digging plus the liner material, and if somebody quoted you the digging alone, that is not a pond quote.
I also clean out existing ponds that have silted in, reshape banks that have caved, and grade the ground around one so the runoff feeding it is not carrying your yard into it.
Footers, stumps and small demolition
Footer excavation. I dig footers to the line and the depth on your plan, square and clean, and I keep the spoil where your forming and pouring people can work. I do not form or pour a structural footing. That goes to a licensed concrete or building contractor, and the two jobs are usually better bought from two people anyway, because the person digging and the person pouring should both be looking at the trench.
Stumps and root balls. The root rake grapple takes them out, roots and all, rather than grinding the top off and leaving the wad in the ground. Big cabbage palm root balls and old oak stumps are the two that eat time out here. Standalone stump grinding is not something I offer, and if grinding is genuinely what you want, that is a different machine and I will point you at somebody who runs one.
Small demolition. An old shed, a carport, a small barn, a slab, a broken driveway, a collapsed structure. Broken out, loaded and hauled off, and the ground graded behind it.
What gets scoped before I quote it: anything with asbestos, anything with a demolition permit attached, and anything with power, water or gas still running to it. I will not knock something down and find out afterward that the service was live. If your job needs a utility disconnect first, that is a call you make and I will wait for it.
What happens to the dirt that comes out
Three outcomes, and I will tell you which one you have before I start.
It stays. Good material gets spread on your property where you want it, which is the cheapest answer and the one I aim for. A pond and a pad on the same parcel is the best version of this: the hole pays for part of the hill.
It goes. Unsuitable material, muck, organic ground, stumps, old fill full of trash. That is a hauling line item and it will show as one on your quote instead of being buried in the price.
I can use it. Sometimes what comes out is genuinely good fill and it has somewhere to be. When that is true it comes off your number, and you should ask about it, because most people never do.
Access, and the thing to check before you call anybody
The machine has to get to the hole. This is the most common reason a job that sounded simple on the phone turns out not to be.
What I look at on the walk: the gate width and whether a truck and trailer can swing into it off the road, overhead limbs and wires on the way in, whether there is anywhere to turn around, soft ground between the road and the work, a septic tank or drainfield in the path, and whether I have to build access before I can start work, which is a real line item and one I would rather show you than hide.
The compact excavator gets into places a full size machine cannot, and the Bobcat T76 on tracks handles softer ground than a wheeled machine. Between them, most residential access out here works. Where it does not, I will tell you on the phone.
What it costs
I price a dig after I have walked it, and the number I write down holds unless you change the scope.
I do not publish an hourly rate, and here is the honest reason. Hourly is a clock running while you wonder what it is up to, and it pays the operator to be slow. I quote the scope instead: this trench, this depth, this length, this spoil handled this way. If you change what you are asking for, the number changes and I will tell you before I do the work rather than on the invoice.
What I will do instead is give you a real number the same day. Send me the town, what you are digging, roughly how long and how deep, and a photo of the access. You get a number back.
What makes it cheaper: dry ground, good access, one dig instead of several, spoil that can stay on site, known utility locations, and doing it while a machine is already on your property for something else.
What eats the number: water in the ground, muck, rock or hardpan, unknown buried junk, hand digging around lines that could not be located, working inside a finished lawn, hauling spoil off, and access I have to build before I can start.
Small jobs carry a minimum, because the trailer, the fuel and the drive cost the same whether the machine runs one hour or eight.
Good fit for me, and what to call somebody else about
Good fit
culverts, drainage pipe, trenching and bedding for somebody else's installer, footer excavation, small ponds and pond cleanouts, stump and root ball removal, digging out muck and bad fill, small demolition, spoil removal, sumps and tank holes, and any of it combined with clearing, a pad or a drive in one booking.
Call somebody else for
tapping a main, setting a meter or connecting to an energized system, all of which belong to a licensed installer. Septic installation, repair or replacement, which is a registered septic contractor. Well drilling. Pouring structural footings or foundations. Anything requiring shoring, dewatering or a trench box on a deep excavation, because that is a different scale of operation than mine and you want the outfit that does it every day. Large permitted stormwater ponds on an engineered plan. Blasting or rock excavation. Directional boring. Standalone stump grinding.
When a job needs more than one machine or a trade I do not do, I bring in people I have worked with for twenty years and I stay the one you call.
What usually comes next
Questions I get
Do you call 811 before you dig?
Every time, two full business days ahead, and the marks are good for thirty days. Worth knowing: the homeowner exemption in Florida's damage prevention law is for the property owner doing his own digging, not for anybody he hires, so it does not cover me and I do not pretend it does. Also worth knowing: 811 does not mark private lines. Your own water line to the barn, your irrigation, your septic, your propane run, the wire out to the well. If you know where they are, show me. If you do not, we go slower in those areas.
Can you run my water line or put in my septic system?
I can dig the trench, bed the pipe, backfill it and compact it for your licensed installer. What I do not do is tap mains, set meters, connect to an energized system, or install a septic system, because those are licensed scopes in Florida and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Plenty of plumbers and septic contractors around here use me for exactly that reason, because they would rather run pipe than run a machine.
Can you dig a pond?
Small ones, yes. Understand two things first. Any real pond work touches stormwater rules and possibly wetland rules, so the parcel has to be checked before a machine moves. And a pond in this sand will not hold water without something at the bottom that stops it draining straight through, which usually means clay. If you want a pond that stays full, budget for the liner material, not just the digging.
What happens to the dirt that comes out?
Depends on the job. Sometimes it stays on your property and gets spread, which is the cheapest answer. Sometimes it is unsuitable and it has to go, which is a hauling line item. And sometimes what comes out is good material and I can use it, which comes off your number. I will tell you which of those you have before I start.
Can you take down an old barn or a mobile home?
Small structures, yes, and the debris hauled off. Anything with asbestos, anything over a certain size, or anything requiring a demolition permit and utility disconnects gets scoped before I quote it. I will not knock something down and find out afterward that the power was still live to it.
Will your machine fit through my gate?
Usually, and it is the right question to ask on the phone rather than on the day. Send me a photo of the gate and the approach off the road, including anything overhead. The compact excavator gets into places a full size machine cannot and the tracked loader handles softer ground than a wheeled machine. Where access genuinely will not work, building it is a real line item and I will show it to you as one rather than absorbing it quietly into the price.
Do you charge by the hour?
No. I quote the scope: this trench, this depth, this length, the spoil handled this way. An hourly clock rewards the operator for being slow and it leaves you watching the meter instead of the work. If you change what you are asking for, the number changes and you hear about it before I do the work, not on the invoice.
Can you break out and haul off an old concrete slab or driveway?
Yes. Broken out, loaded, hauled off, and the ground graded behind it. If the slab has power, water or gas running under or to it, that gets sorted before I start. And if you are replacing it, ask me to quote the removal and the new flatwork together, because one machine trip covers both. See concrete flatwork.
Tell me what needs digging
Call (352) 932-3653, or send the form. Tell me the town, what you are digging and roughly how long and how deep. Photos of the access matter as much as photos of the work: the gate, the approach off the road, and anything overhead.
Free estimate, on site, no pressure. If your job needs somebody with a license I do not have, I will tell you that in two minutes on the phone rather than waste your week.
Free estimateCall (352) 932-3653