Excavation and demolition in Kent
King County
Kent is two jobs in one city. The valley floor is the flattest, most open ground we work and the softest; the hills either side of it are ordinary till and ordinary slopes.
The ground in Kent
The valley floor is old Green River bottom — silt and sand laid down by the river, farmland until the warehouses went up over it. It digs easily and it holds a wall badly. Water sits close enough to the surface that a hole left open overnight is often not the hole you left.
East Hill and West Hill rise steeply on either side on glacial till. Same city, opposite problem: firm digging that takes a clean face, on lots where the approach is the hard part.
Most of the valley was filled before it was built on, so what is under a slab down there is somebody else's import rather than native ground. We expect to find it and we price the haul accordingly.
Areas we work in Kent
Access and terrain change a job more than anything else does. These are the parts of Kent we get called to and what each one usually means for the work.
- Kent Valley industrial
- Warehouse and distribution ground. Big flat parcels with room to stage, soft subgrade, and a lot of asphalt and slab to come out before anything else starts.
- East Hill
- Residential plateau on firm till. The digging is straightforward; getting a machine up the hill and onto a narrow lot is what sets the price.
- West Hill and Midway
- Slope above the valley with the highway on top of it. Cut lots where the ground above has to be accounted for before the face comes out.
- Downtown and Meeker
- Older housing stock on small lots. Selective removal and foundation work more often than open teardowns.
- Panther Lake
- Newer infill on a plateau, often wooded, where clearing comes before anything gets dug.
What Kent usually needs
- Underground utilitiesTrenching, pipe in the ground, and safe walls while it goes in.
- Excavation and earthworkDigging to grade, and ground that holds what goes on it.
- Trucking and haulingMaterial in, spoil and debris out.
Working in Kent?
Tell us what the site is and what has to come out. We would rather look at it than price it off a drawing.