Excavation Services

Boss PDX is a licensed excavating contractor serving Portland, OR and the surrounding metro (Oregon CCB #232383, Washington BOSSPPL793RN). We handle site prep, grading, foundation excavation, utility trenching, demolition, and pool removal for residential and commercial projects — with a fixed written scope before any equipment rolls onto your property. Portland's combination of clay-heavy soils, high seasonal water tables, mature tree root systems, and utility-dense urban lots makes excavation here different from excavation almost anywhere else in the country. We dig in this ground every week, and we scope every job from actual site conditions, not a generic formula.

Types of Excavation Services We Perform in Portland

Excavation is not one job — it is a category of ground work that covers everything from scraping topsoil for a patio pad to digging ten feet down for a full basement. Here is what Boss PDX handles across residential and commercial sites in the Portland metro.

Foundation Excavation

Foundation excavation is the most precision-critical work we do. Whether you are building a new home, adding an ADU, or pouring a concrete foundation for a garage or shop, the excavation has to hit engineered elevations within an inch. In Portland, that means cutting through the region's notoriously dense clay soils — the Willamette Silt and Portland Hills Silt series — which hold moisture, swell when wet, and shrink when dry. If the subgrade is not cut to the right depth and compacted properly, the foundation moves. We dig to the engineer's spec, verify with a laser level, compact the subgrade per the soils report, and have it ready for the form crew or inspector on the date the schedule says.

Utility Trenching

Utility trenching covers water lines, sewer laterals, storm drains, gas lines, and electrical conduit. Portland's urban lots are densely packed with buried utilities — many of them unmapped or mapped inaccurately — and hitting one is expensive, dangerous, or both. Every Boss PDX trenching job starts with an Oregon 811 utility locate, and when the marks come back ambiguous (which happens often on older Portland lots where utilities were installed decades before GPS), we hand-dig or use a vacuum excavator to expose the line before the bucket goes near it. Trench depth, bedding material, and backfill compaction all have to meet the plumbing inspector's requirements, which vary by jurisdiction — Portland BDS, Tigard, Lake Oswego, and West Linn each have their own specs. We know them because we pull permits in all of them.

Site Grading and Land Leveling

Grading sets the drainage pattern for your entire property. Done wrong, water pools against the foundation, floods the crawl space, or erodes the yard into your neighbor's lot. Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) has specific stormwater management requirements that affect how a site drains after construction — you cannot simply grade everything toward the street and call it done. On many projects, we install swales, drywells, or other infiltration features as part of the grading plan, and the finished grade has to demonstrate positive drainage away from all structures while meeting BES stormwater standards. For commercial sites, the grading plan is typically engineered and stamped; for residential, we work from the site plan or develop the grading layout ourselves based on the survey and the soils.

Site Preparation and Land Clearing

Before any structure goes up, the site has to be cleared — vegetation, stumps, old concrete, debris, and sometimes existing structures. In Portland, site clearing comes with a constraint many contractors overlook: tree root protection zones. The City of Portland's Title 11 tree code protects trees above a certain caliper, and excavation within the root protection zone — which extends well beyond the drip line — requires an arborist's plan and sometimes root pruning before any equipment enters the zone. We factor tree protection into the scope and schedule from the start, not as a surprise change order after the city shuts the job down.

Demolition and Removal

Excavation often starts with removing what is already there — old foundations, concrete slabs, failing retaining walls, buried debris, or decommissioned septic tanks. We handle selective demolition as well as full tear-down and haul-off. All debris is sorted for recycling where possible and hauled to licensed disposal facilities. Contaminated soil goes to a DEQ-approved site with proper documentation.

Pool and Hot Tub Removal

In-ground pool removal is either a full removal — the entire shell is broken up and hauled out, the hole backfilled with structural fill and compacted in lifts — or a partial removal, where walls are knocked down to a certain depth, holes are punched in the bottom for drainage, and the cavity is filled. Full removal is more expensive but leaves no buried structure. Partial removal is faster but must be disclosed if you sell. We quote both options when the homeowner is undecided.

Portland's Soil Conditions and Why They Matter

If you have dug a fence post in Portland, you already know the soil is not friendly. The Willamette Valley's native soils are predominantly silty clay and clay loam — they are dense, sticky when wet, hard as concrete when dry, and they do not drain well. In many Portland neighborhoods, particularly on the east side and in low-lying areas near the Columbia Slough, Johnson Creek, and Fanno Creek, the water table sits close enough to the surface that excavation below three or four feet hits standing water, especially between October and May.

This has direct consequences for excavation work. Trenches in saturated clay collapse faster, requiring shoring or benching to keep crews safe. Foundation excavations in high-water-table areas may need dewatering — pumping groundwater out continuously while the foundation is poured — which adds equipment and time. Backfill in clay soils has to be compacted in controlled lifts with moisture content managed, or it settles unevenly and takes the structure with it. Every Boss PDX excavation scope accounts for these conditions based on the site walk and the soils report.

Equipment for Portland's Urban Lots

Portland's residential lots — especially in inner neighborhoods like Sellwood, Hawthorne, Division, Alberta, and Mississippi — are narrow, fenced, and often accessible only through a single gate or down a shared driveway. Full-size excavators cannot reach many of these sites without destroying landscaping or the neighbor's property.

For tight-access urban lots, we use mini excavators (3- to 5-ton machines) that fit through a 36-inch gate opening, paired with track loaders and small dump trailers. For larger sites — new construction in the suburbs, commercial pads, acreage in Newberg or McMinnville — we bring full-size excavators, bulldozers, and tandem dump trucks. The right machine for the job is the one that can work the site without damaging it, and that decision is made during the site walk.

Erosion Control During Portland's Rainy Season

Portland receives roughly 37 inches of rain per year, with the vast majority falling between October and June. Any excavation that exposes bare soil during this window — which is most of the calendar year — requires erosion control measures to prevent sediment from washing into the storm system, the street, or the neighbor's yard. Portland's BES and DEQ enforce erosion control requirements on construction sites, and violations carry real fines.

On every Boss PDX excavation project, erosion control is built into the scope from day one: silt fencing along downslope property lines, inlet protection on nearby storm drains, stabilized construction entrances to keep mud off the street, and covering exposed soil with straw mulch if the area will sit open for more than a few days. On larger grading projects, we install sediment basins or erosion control blankets on slopes. The goal is to keep your dirt on your site and keep the project moving through the wet months without a stop-work order.

Oregon 811 Utility Locates

Oregon law requires anyone excavating to call 811 at least two business days before digging. The call triggers utility companies to mark the approximate location of buried gas, electric, telecom, water, and sewer mains with paint and flags. Boss PDX handles the 811 call as part of every excavation scope — you do not need to call separately.

What 811 does not mark is your private utilities — the service line from the meter to your house, the sewer lateral from your cleanout to the main, irrigation lines, and buried electrical running to a detached garage or shop. These are the lines that most commonly get hit because nobody knows exactly where they run. When we are trenching near likely private utility paths, we hand-dig or use ground-penetrating radar to locate lines before the machine goes near them.

Hauling, Disposal, and Fill Material

Most excavation projects generate spoils that have to leave the site. Hauling costs depend on volume, weight (Portland's clay runs about 1.5 tons per cubic yard when wet), distance to the disposal site, and whether the material is clean fill or contaminated. We include hauling and disposal in every quote as a line item so there are no surprises. When a project requires imported fill — structural fill, drainage gravel, or crushed rock for a base course — we source it from local aggregate suppliers and include the material and delivery in the scope.

Excavation Costs in Portland

There is no honest flat rate for excavation in Portland because every site is different. A simple grading job on an open lot with cooperative soil runs a few thousand dollars. A foundation excavation in tight-access clay with a high water table, shoring, and extensive hauling runs significantly higher. The variables that drive cost are volume of material moved, soil conditions, equipment access, depth of dig, hauling distance, and permitting.

Boss PDX quotes every excavation job from a site walk — not from a phone description, not from a satellite photo. After the walk, you receive a fixed written scope with line-item pricing. If conditions change during the work — unexpected rock, contaminated soil, a utility where the locate said there would not be one — any adjustment goes through a written change order before the work changes. Start with a free scope and estimate.

Excavation Timeline: How Long Does It Take?

A straightforward residential grading or trenching job can be completed in one to three days once equipment is on-site. A full foundation excavation with hauling typically runs three to five days. Larger commercial site prep with extensive grading, utility work, and demolition can take one to three weeks. The calendar timeline is usually longer than the work timeline because of permit lead times, inspection scheduling, weather delays, and coordination with other trades. We build a realistic schedule during scoping and communicate it before work starts — if rain or inspections push the timeline, you hear about it the same day.

Frequently Asked Questions

How deep can you excavate on a residential property in Portland?

There is no universal depth limit for residential excavation, but depth affects permitting, shoring requirements, and cost. Any excavation deeper than five feet requires OSHA-compliant trenching protection — sloping, benching, or shoring — to protect workers from cave-ins. In Portland's clay soils, trench walls are classified as Type C (the least stable category), which means the shoring or slope requirements are more stringent than in sandy or granular soils. Foundation excavations commonly reach eight to ten feet for full basements. We scope the shoring method and cost into the estimate so it is not a surprise on-site.

Do I need a permit for excavation or grading in Portland?

Most excavation beyond minor landscaping requires a permit. In Portland, grading permits are required when you move more than ten cubic yards of material or change the grade within a certain distance of a property line or structure. Foundation excavation falls under the building permit. Utility trenching typically requires separate plumbing or mechanical permits depending on what is being installed. Erosion control plans are required on most construction sites. Boss PDX pulls all required permits as part of the scope of work — you do not need to navigate the permitting process yourself.

What happens if you hit a utility line during excavation?

If a marked utility is hit, the utility company is notified immediately and responds to make the repair. If an unmarked private utility is hit — the more common scenario — we stop work, assess the damage, and coordinate the repair before proceeding. Hitting a gas line is a life-safety issue that triggers immediate evacuation and utility company response. Careful locating and hand-digging around suspect areas prevents the vast majority of utility strikes.

Can you excavate during Portland's rainy season?

Yes. We excavate year-round in Portland. The rainy season (roughly October through June) adds erosion control requirements, may require dewatering in excavations that hit the water table, and can slow production on days with heavy rain — but it does not stop work. Most of our excavation projects run during the wet months because that is when construction happens in the Pacific Northwest. We plan for rain in the schedule, install erosion control before the first bucket of dirt moves, and manage water on-site throughout the project.

How do you protect trees on the property during excavation?

Portland's Title 11 tree code requires protection of significant trees during construction. Before excavation begins on a lot with protected trees, we establish the root protection zone (RPZ) for each tree — typically defined as one foot of radius per inch of trunk diameter — and fence it off with orange construction fencing. No equipment, material storage, or grading is allowed inside the RPZ without an arborist's supervision. When excavation must encroach on the RPZ (for a utility trench, for example), we coordinate with a certified arborist for root pruning and monitoring. Ignoring the tree code can result in stop-work orders and fines that far exceed the cost of doing it right from the start.

What soil testing or engineering do I need before excavation?

For foundation excavation on new construction, most Portland-area jurisdictions require a geotechnical report from a licensed engineer. The report identifies soil type, bearing capacity, water table depth, and special conditions (expansive clay, fill, organics) that affect foundation design and excavation methods. For simpler projects like grading or pool removal, a soils report is not always required but may be recommended if the site has known issues — steep slope, fill history, or proximity to a creek or wetland. Boss PDX can recommend geotechnical engineers we work with regularly.

Why Hire Boss PDX for Excavation in Portland

Boss PDX has been excavating and site-prepping in the Portland metro since 2020, licensed and bonded in Oregon and Washington, with a 4.9-out-of-5 rating across 60-plus Google reviews. We are not a standalone excavation company — we are a general contractor that self-performs excavation as part of larger builds, which means we understand how the dig ties into the foundation pour, the utility connection, the retaining wall, and the finished grade. That continuity eliminates the finger-pointing that happens when excavation is handled by one sub, concrete by another, and framing by a third.

Every excavation job gets one lead and one project manager from site walk through backfill. Every quote is a fixed written scope with line-item pricing. Every change goes through a written change order. We work with 41 named trade partners — engineers, material suppliers, haulers — so nothing stalls waiting on us to find someone mid-project. See who they are on our partners page.

Call 844-BOSS-PDX (844-267-7739) or request a free estimate and we will have a licensed lead out to walk your property. We respond the same day, and the estimate that follows is scoped to your actual site — not a range pulled from a brochure.