La Pine, Oregon · CCB #260092Site preparation
Turning a raw lot into ground a crew can start building on.
- Oregon CCB #260092
- DEQ SDS #39968
- Bonded & insured
- La Pine · Sunriver · Bend · Redmond · Sisters
What site prep actually decides
Site prep sets the elevations that everything above ground will reference for the life of the building. Get the pad elevation wrong relative to the driveway, the septic, or the natural drainage, and you are solving that problem with money for years.
This is the stage where the cheap decisions and the expensive ones are furthest apart in cost and closest together in appearance.
Clearing and stripping
Trees, brush, and stumps come out of the building envelope and wherever access requires. Around structures this often overlaps with defensible-space requirements, which are worth handling deliberately rather than in a rush before an inspection.
Topsoil and organic material get stripped from anything that will be built on or driven on. Organics under a pad or a driveway decompose and settle, and the settlement shows up after the concrete is poured.
Rough grading and the pad
The building pad gets cut, filled, and compacted to the elevation the plans call for. Fill has to be placed in lifts and compacted — fill dumped to grade and bladed flat will settle, and a foundation on settling fill is an expensive conversation.
The finished pad should sit high relative to the surrounding ground so water moves away from the structure rather than toward it. This is the single most common thing done badly on residential lots.
What central Oregon adds
Pumice over rock is the standard local condition and both ends of it matter. Pumice compacts differently than the material most specifications assume. Rock at shallow depth changes the cost of anything that needs to go below grade — footings, utilities, septic.
Both are worth finding at the estimate stage. A site walk and, where it matters, some exploratory digging costs far less than discovering rock after the excavator is already mobilized.
Erosion control
Disturbed ground moves when it rains and when the snow melts. Depending on the site and the jurisdiction, erosion control may be a permit condition rather than a nicety.
It is also simply cheaper to keep soil in place than to put it back.
What this covers
- LOT AND BUILDING ENVELOPE CLEARING
- TOPSOIL AND ORGANIC STRIPPING
- ROUGH GRADE TO PLAN ELEVATION
- PAD CONSTRUCTION AND COMPACTION
- CUT AND FILL
- EROSION CONTROL
- CONSTRUCTION ACCESS
Bringing plans?
Send them with your estimate request. Pad elevations and setbacks tell us most of what drives the number.
Tell us about the site.
Estimates are free, and we would rather look at it in person than guess.