Land clearing turns a lot you cannot use into ground you can work on. Most jobs around here start the same way. Brush has taken over an old pasture, or a hillside woodlot sits where a house should go. Small trees crowd the driveway line. Stumps and roots sit under all of it. We cut the growth down and dig out the stumps. The material gets hauled off, and what is left is open ground. We run this work out of Pownal, Vermont. Our trucks cover Bennington, the Capital Region in New York, and the northern Berkshires.
Every lot here hides something. Stone walls run through the treeline where a farm field used to end. Ledge comes up close to the surface on the hill lots. Old wire, buried stumps, rotting fence posts, and dumped scrap show up once the brush is off. We look at all of that before we quote, so the price holds. You tell us where the edges go and what stays. A big maple at the corner can stay. A row of scrub along the road can go. We work for homeowners taking their yard back and for builders who need a build site opened up.
Tell us about your project and we will get right back to you.
Lot clearing starts with brush removal. We knock down the brambles, sumac, wild grape, and young growth that took the field. Under that you usually find saplings up to six inches through. Those get cut low and set aside. Then the stumps get dug out. Roots on old maple and oak run wide and shallow in this soil. The holes end up bigger than people expect. We backfill them as we go. On a rough lot you pull rock too, and there is plenty of it here.
The material has to go somewhere, and that choice changes the price. Wood big enough to burn gets cut to length and stacked for you. Brush and slash get loaded and hauled off the site. Trucking is in the company's background, 30 years of it, so moving material off is routine. If you would rather the wood stay onsite as chips, forestry mulching does that. Most people want a mix. Firewood stays and the scrap goes. The ground gets raked smooth enough to mow.
Clearing everything is rarely the right answer. Trees on the north and west side cut the wind in winter. A screen along the road keeps the house private. On a hillside, roots hold the bank together, and stripping them invites washouts during mud season. We usually mark the keep line with you first. Open the area you will actually use, then stop. That might be an acre around the house on a ten acre piece. It costs less, and the property still looks like it belongs here.
Views are the other reason people call. A lot of hill lots here have a view sitting behind 40 feet of scrub and softwood. Taking a wedge out of the treeline can open the valley without gutting the woods. The same idea works for solar panels and gardens that need more sun. Old pasture is its own case. Fields that stopped getting mowed grow back in fast, and after 15 years you have a young forest. Pulling that back to grass takes brush removal plus stump work, but the field comes back.
Builders and homeowners call us before the foundation crew shows up. The job is to get the footprint open and the machines able to reach it. That means the house area, the driveway line, the septic area, and room to stack material. We clear a working margin around the footprint so nobody is squeezed. Stumps and roots come out of the building area completely, since organic material under a slab settles later. The excavation and grading work is a separate step, and we handle that too.
Timing matters here more than most places. The ground is soft from thaw through late spring, and heavy machines make a mess of a wet lot. Late summer and fall are the easy months. Winter clearing works on frozen ground, and frost actually protects the soil under the tracks. If you are building next year, clear in the fall. That gives the ground a season to settle before the foundation goes in. Call (802) 681-6842 and tell us what the lot looks like.
Free, no-obligation estimates across the VT · NY · MA tri-state corner.
(802) 681-6842From the first look at the site to the last pass of finish grade, here is exactly how it goes.
We come out and read the ground: the slope, the water, the access, and whether ledge is likely. What you want done, what is worth doing, and what the job really takes. Nothing gets quoted blind over the phone.
You get a free estimate with a real number and a real window. It covers what is included, and it holds unless the ground changes the scope. If rock shows up mid dig, you hear about it that day.
The machine shows up when we said it would, and the person running it is the person you talked to. The work follows the plan: the permit design on a septic job, the grade plan on a pad, the pitch on a drain.
Backfill goes in compacted, grades pitch away from the house, and topsoil comes back where it belongs. We look at the finished work with you, and done means you say it is done.
Common questions about land clearing across the VT · NY · MA tri-state corner. Yours not here? Call and ask us directly.
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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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.
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New gravel driveways, regrading and repair around Pownal and Bennington. Proper subgrade, base and top course, a real crown, and culverts set so water leaves the drive.
View DetailsOne company handles your job from the first call to the finished grade. The estimate, the schedule and the digging all come from the same shop, so you always know who to call.
Clearing, the septic system, the pad, the drainage and the driveway can run as one job with one schedule. For timber frames and pools, longtime partner builders join the same plan.
Every estimate comes from looking at the actual ground. Ledge, slope, water and access set the real cost of dirt work here, so we look first and the number holds.
Ledge near the surface, frost four feet down, mud season every April. Work here has to be planned for what the ground does in March, and ours is.
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.
Tell us about your project and we will get right back to you.
