PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Cut and fill, building pads, grading and site prep across the Brazos Valley. Post oak sand on the uplands, river bottom clay below, and the two do not behave the same under a machine.
Brazos County splits cleanly and it matters more here than most places. The uplands are post oak savannah on sandy loam that drains well and digs easily, and the bottoms toward the Brazos and the Navasota are heavy clay that holds water for weeks after the high ground has dried. A pad priced on the wrong half of that is a pad priced wrong.
Sandy loam over the post oak country is forgiving to work and it sheds water, which is good for scheduling and good for access. What it is not is automatically stable under a slab. Sand needs compaction to a spec just like clay does, and it needs the fines to bind, so we test rather than assume.
Down toward the river the ground stays wet long after the uplands are dry, and working it saturated tears ruts that outlast the job and produces fill that will not compact. On bottom ground we schedule around weather rather than push through it, and we will tell you to wait.
The full menu from our excavation and dirt work page, priced and planned for Bryan ground.
Cut and fill is the whole job on most sites around Bryan. Material comes off the high side, goes onto the low side, and gets compacted as it goes rather than pushed into place and hoped over. Balancing a site so nothing has to be hauled in or out is the cheapest version of this work, and where the ground allows it we will tell you.
Grading is what separates a site that drains from one that ponds. We shape positive fall away from every structure, tie it into somewhere the water can actually go, and finish to a surface that reads as landform rather than machine tracks. On brazos county getting this wrong shows up the first wet season.
A pad is only as good as what is under it. Subgrade gets prepared, fill goes in compacted lifts to a spec, and the finished elevation is set against the drainage plan rather than the existing dirt. Barn pads, shop pads and house pads around Bryan all get built the same way because the failure mode is the same.
Site prep is where our clearing side and our dirt side meet. Trees down, stumps and root balls out of the building footprint, ground cut to rough grade and handed to a builder ready for survey and permit. Doing both halves with one crew is faster and there is nobody to blame in the middle.
Ranch roads and driveways get built to survive rain, not just to look right on the day. Crown for shedding water, base rock spread and compacted to a real depth, and crossings where the water already wants to run. A road built without those three costs more in the second year than it saved in the first.
Ponds and stock tanks are dirt work with a water problem attached. The dam gets keyed into undisturbed ground and built in compacted lifts, the basin gets cut to depth, and the spillway goes in at the right elevation. Around Bryan we will tell you honestly whether your ground will hold water before you commit.
We price the way ranchers think: what iron, how many days, what it costs to get it there. Everything else is a named line item you saw coming. The same published day-rate logic runs our clearing, pond, and dirt quotes, which keeps everybody honest. Send photos to 512-400-2693 for the ballpark today.
Around Bryan the number turns on which half of the county you are on. Upland sand is faster to move and easier to reach; bottomland is slower, weather dependent and sometimes needs material imported because the native clay will not compact. Haul distance is the third factor on tighter lots near town.
Send photos and your town, get an honest range the same day. No pressure funnel, no waiting week for a callback.
We find what the ground is hiding, rock, water, soft spots, before it can find your budget. The design happens here, in person.
Machine days on paper: dig, fill, grade, transport, contingencies. You can check the logic against our published rates.
Usually a few weeks out from signing. We need a gate the iron fits through and a place for the trailer, and we handle the rest.
Watch the ground change daily from outside the swing radius. Topsoil saved, fills compacted, grades cut to move water.
A slow lap around the finished work together, against the quote. Fixed on the spot if anything misses. Then it is yours.
A pond is a dirt job with a water problem attached, and it is the same crew, the same machines and the same compaction standard as a building pad. The difference is that a pad fails slowly and a dam fails all at once.
Everything that matters happens in the dam. It gets keyed in so water cannot slide underneath it, built in compacted lifts rather than pushed up in one pass, and given a bank shallow enough to mow. Ponds almost never fail in the middle. They fail at the dam.
The spillway is the other half. Somewhere for overflow to go that is not across the dam, cut into undisturbed ground at the right elevation.
Around Bryan that question gets answered with test pits, not optimism. If the ground will not hold water on its own we will say so and price the fix, whether that is a clay core, imported select fill or a sealed basin.
Depth beats width every time. Six feet at center is the baseline we build to, and it is why our pond pricing is quoted that way.
Real projects with full write-ups and photos. Every card opens the project page.
Every number on a dirt job comes back to what is under the surface, and the only honest way to know is to open the ground. We dig test holes on the site walk. It costs an hour and it is the difference between a quote you can rely on and a change order later.
Fill placed in one lift and tracked over looks identical to fill placed in compacted lifts, right up until something is built on it. We build to a spec and we are happy to have it tested. The pads that fail in Texas nearly all failed at this step.
Most dirt work that goes wrong went wrong because of water, not dirt. Where it comes from, where it sits and where it leaves are questions we answer before the first cut around Bryan, because retrofitting drainage after concrete is the expensive way to learn it.
We clear the trees and we move the dirt, which means the stumps come out of the pad footprint properly instead of being someone else problem. On a site that needs both, that is usually days off the schedule and one less contractor to coordinate.
Absolutely the best service you could ask for. When Bobby said he would be at our property every day at 0700 and work from 0730 to 1530 he meant it. He was here every day 5 minutes early.
lewis ecker, Google review
These guys are great! We booked a date and they showed up on time and went straight to work. Taylor, the owner, answered all of my text messages promptly. I have five acres of very dense elm and oak trees.
alan baldree, Google review
Pierce Land Clearing did an amazing job. Our property was covered in extremely thick cedar. They came out and cleared it for us and transformed our land. They are friendly and knowledgeable.
Rob Rindone, Google review
Priced by the machine day rather than by guesswork. Dozer and excavator work is $3,000 per day plus transport, with a one day minimum on every machine. What sets your number is how much material moves, whether fill has to be imported, and whether you are on upland sand or river bottom clay. Send photos and we will give you a real figure.
Yes, and it is usually cheaper to have one outfit do both. Trees down, stumps and root balls out of the building footprint, then straight into cut and fill with the same crew. On a site that needs clearing and dirt work, splitting it across two contractors adds days and a blame line in the middle.
Yes. Bring the plan set and we build to it, including compaction spec and finished elevations. If the plan and the ground disagree, which happens in Brazos County more than people expect, we will flag it before we start rather than build something that has to be redone.
Both ways: cut and fill to the civil plans with grade staking respected, or design-build for ranch and homestead work where the plan gets made on the site walk. Either way the quote says exactly what is being built.
Scope priced, in machine days: the iron, the days, transport, and any flagged contingency. Send photos to 512-400-2693 for a same-day ballpark, then a site walk turns it into a written number that does not move after signing.
It gets planned for, not discovered. The site walk includes probing, and the quote carries a written contingency for ripping or hammering, billed by the day. The difference between outfits shows up at the first hard bucket, and ours is in writing.
Photos and a rough scope get a same-day ballpark. A site walk gets a written number in machine days that does not move after you sign.
