Excavation Contractors in Knoxville, TN

Excavation contractors in Knoxville deal with a city that covers 104.25 square miles and housed 190,740 people at the 2020 census. Downtown sits a little over 900 feet above sea level, the riverfront just over 800 and Sharp's Ridge in North Knoxville tops out at 1,391 feet. Inside those limits are 91,908 housing units on every kind of lot: flat creek bottoms, terraced hillsides and narrow streetcar-era parcels.

Creeks through the city

First and Second creeks drain downtown, Third Creek runs west of the University of Tennessee, and Sinking Creek, Ten Mile Creek and Turkey Creek drain West Knoxville. Lots that back up to one of these often have a floodplain line on the plat. Grading and fill inside a floodplain are restricted, so we look at the plat and the flood map before planning any work near the water.

Old neighborhoods, old lines

Fourth and Gill, Parkridge and Fort Sanders are mostly late-19th-century Victorians and Craftsman bungalows. Lindbergh Forest and Sequoyah Hills filled in during the late 1920s and 1930s. Postwar neighborhoods are largely ranch houses. The older the house, the more likely the sewer lateral is clay pipe and the grade has settled toward the foundation. Lateral trenches, downspout lines and regrades are routine work for us inside the city.

Tight access

City lots often have narrow side yards, alleys, retaining walls and on-street parking. Compact excavators and skid steers handle most of it. We plan where a dump truck can stand and how long, and keep red clay off the street with mats and a swept curb at the end of each day.

Rock and karst

Knoxville sits in the Great Appalachian Valley, where the valley floors are underlain by limestone and dolomite. Bedrock depth changes from one lot to the next, and closed depressions are common in some areas. We price rock separately and never send drainage into a sink.

Infill lots

Knoxville still has empty and overgrown lots inside older neighborhoods, many with old foundations, rubble or buried debris from houses that came down decades ago. Before building on one, we clear the brush, dig test holes where the house stood and haul out what should not be under a new footing. That work is cheap compared with a cracked slab later.

Weather windows

With a January average low near 30 degrees and only a few inches of snow in a normal year, we can dig most of the winter. What stops us is a stretch of soaking rain on red clay. When the ground is saturated we would rather move a grading job by a few days than pack wet clay that will settle under a patio or driveway.

City jobs we do most

• Sewer lateral replacement trenches
• French drains and downspout lines on wet lots
• Footings for additions, garages and porches
• Regrading around older foundations
• Infill lot clearing and building pads

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