Diggin Life runs excavation in Albany, New York, and the towns around it. We work out of Pownal, Vermont, about 40 miles east on Route 7. A job in Pine Hills or off Delaware Avenue is a short haul for us. Three decades of trucking sit behind the company, with equipment time before that. The quote comes from people who will be on the site. Most of the work here is drainage, regrading, foundation digs, and gravel driveways. Site work for builders is part of it too.
Albany is a sewered city, so the digging here is not about septic tanks. It is about water in the wrong place. The ground under most of the city is Lake Albany clay, left behind by a glacial lake. Clay holds water instead of letting it soak in. That is why wet basements and soggy side yards are common complaints here. Out west toward the Pine Bush, the soil flips to loose sand that drains fast. We install and repair septic systems in the rural towns beyond the city line. That means New Scotland and the Helderberg hilltowns, where there is no public sewer. One call covers the New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts sides of this corner.
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Most of Albany sits on Lake Albany clay. A glacial lake once filled this stretch of the Hudson Valley. It dropped thick layers of silt and clay on the bottom. Along the Hudson those clay beds commonly run more than 50 feet deep. Clay is heavy and slow to drain. It gets slick the moment it is wet. It smears instead of crumbling, so a trench cut in spring can look solid and then slump. We dig it when it will hold. We backfill with stone instead of the same wet spoil. Then we pitch the grade so water runs away from the building.
The west side of Albany is different ground. The Pine Bush is an old sand delta from the same glacial lake. Wind piled it into dunes. Sand drains fast and holds no shape in a trench wall. It needs the right bedding under pipe and gravel. On the south edge of the city the Normans Kill runs through steep ravines. Those valley walls are clay, and clay slopes near water move. The city accounts for it. Grading near a stream or on a slope of 15 degrees or more needs an erosion and sediment control plan.
Albany is on public sewer, so the calls here are about drainage and grade. The city sits on a combined sewer system. Code bars roof runoff and sump water from the sanitary line. That leaves your water for you to handle on your own lot. More than 40 percent of Albany homes went up before 1940. The median home here was built around 1949. Old stone and block foundations leak once the soil around them stays wet. French drains, footing drains, dry wells, and regraded yards are the fix. All of it is dirt work.
Driveways are the other steady job in Albany. Old lots are narrow. Where an alley runs behind the block, the city requires rear access. A new apron or a right of way opening needs a permit from the Department of General Services. We also dig footings, foundation holes, and utility trenches. We clear lots and mulch brush on the bigger parcels. Septic is real work for us, just not inside Albany. City lots under 15,000 square feet cannot get a private system permit. That work sits west of town, in New Scotland and hilltowns like Berne and Knox.
Communities & areas we serve around Albany: Pine Hills, Buckingham Lake, Whitehall, Delaware Avenue, Helderberg, Upper Washington, Woodlawn, Melrose, Beverwyck.
Albany ZIP codes served: 12202, 12203, 12206, 12208, 12209, 12210.
We install new septic systems and full replacements across the tri-state corner. Tank, drain field, pipe and final grade, all built to the licensed design on your permit.
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Septic system repair for older rural systems around Bennington and the tri-state corner. We find why it backed up, then repair the tank, the line, or the field.
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We clear overgrown lots and acreage so the land can be used again. Brush, saplings, stumps, and old fence line come out. What is left is ready for a build site or pasture.
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Forestry mulching grinds standing brush and small trees into a layer of mulch. One machine does the cutting and the cleanup. The ground stays covered and the wood stays on your land.
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We handle grading and site preparation across the tri-state corner. That means building pads, foundation digs, driveway subgrade, and regrading a yard so water runs away from the house.
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French drains, curtain drains, yard drains and culverts that move snowmelt and storm runoff away from the house. We dig below frost depth and pitch every line so it keeps working.
View DetailsA few of the questions we hear most around Albany. Yours not here? Call and ask us directly.
A septic system that needs to go in, a lot to clear, a wet yard, or a driveway that will not survive another spring? Call or send the form. We look at the site with you and price the job from what is actually in the ground.
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