Excavation and demolition in Seattle
King County
Seattle is the ground we know best, and close enough to everything else we cover that we can look at a site before quoting it rather than pricing off a drawing.
The ground in Seattle
Most of the city sits on glacial till — dense, compacted ground that takes a clean vertical face and is hard digging. The Duwamish valley below us is the opposite: soft fill and alluvium where a trench wall will not stand on its own.
Seattle is a city of slopes. A lot that looks flat from the street often falls away hard at the back, which changes how the machine gets in and where the spoil goes.
Space is the constant problem. Lots are narrow, there is rarely room to stockpile, and the haul has to be sequenced with the digging rather than done at the end.
Areas we work in Seattle
Access and terrain change a job more than anything else does. These are the parts of Seattle we get called to and what each one usually means for the work.
- Queen Anne
- Steep streets and narrow frontages. Access usually decides the machine size before the work does.
- Ballard
- Dense infill and teardown-and-rebuild lots, most with alley access and a neighbour within a few feet on both sides.
- West Seattle
- Slopes and bluff-edge lots where the cut has to be planned around what is holding the ground above it.
- Georgetown and SODO
- Flat industrial ground in the Duwamish valley. Soft fill and a high water table, but room to actually work.
- Magnolia
- Bluff lots with long, awkward approaches and very little room to turn a truck around.
- Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley
- Ridge and valley in the same job. Older housing stock, so a lot of the work is removal before anything new goes in.
What Seattle usually needs
- DemolitionStructures down, debris gone, site left clean.
- Excavation and earthworkDigging to grade, and ground that holds what goes on it.
- Underground utilitiesTrenching, pipe in the ground, and safe walls while it goes in.
Working in Seattle?
Tell us what the site is and what has to come out. We would rather look at it than price it off a drawing.