PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Dirt work is where a property stops being brush and starts being buildable. We run our own dozers and excavators, quote in machine days you can check, and hand back ground that is cut, compacted, and ready for whatever comes next. Same crew, same standard, from the first tree down to the last pass of the blade.
Six services, one crew, one plan. If the job is moving dirt in Central Texas, it lands in one of these buckets, and it gets the same iron and the same standard either way.
Bulk dirt moved with excavators and dozers: cuts taken to grade, fill placed where the plan needs it, and the two balanced against each other so your budget is not spent trucking dirt down the county road.
Rough and finish grading that moves water on purpose. Slopes, swales, and crowns cut so rain leaves the ground instead of living on it, and a finish smooth enough to seed or build on.
House pads, barn pads, and shop pads built in compacted lifts, not pushed-up piles. Cut to plan, moisture-conditioned, and packed so the slab crew finds exactly what the engineer drew.
From raw tract to build-ready: clearing, grubbing, rough grade, and base material placed. The stage every builder wishes was already done. See our site preparation page.
Roads that survive the wet year: corridor cleared, cut to grade, crowned, and built up with compacted base. See our ranch road page.
The dig side of the pond trade we run every month: basins cut, core trenches keyed, dams raised in lifts. Our pond construction page has the published price list.
Most dirt work in Texas gets split across three contractors: one clears, one grubs, one grades, and the gaps between them are where budgets die. A clearing crew that leaves stumps makes the grading crew hammer through roots. A grading crew that never saw the clearing plan buries brush in your pad. We run the whole sequence with one crew and one plan: land clearing and mulching first, stumps and roots grubbed out clean, then the cut, the fill, the compaction, and the finish grade, in that order, by people who were standing on the site at step one.
That is also why our excavation quotes hold up. By the time we price the dirt, we have usually walked the brush and know what is under the surface, because we are the ones who took the surface off. No surprises passed between subcontractors, and no finger pointing when the ground gets hard.
We price dirt the way we price clearing: in machine days, on paper, before the iron loads. No allowances that balloon, no unit-rate mysteries.
The size of the iron, the days it works, and the transport to get it there. A quote reads like a plan: which machines, how many days of cut and fill, what the compaction spec adds, and what the finish grade covers. Day rates follow the same published logic as our clearing work, so you can sanity-check us against our own website.
Rock that has to be ripped or hammered instead of dug. Dirt that has to leave the property instead of balancing on it. Engineered compaction specs that add water trucks and testing time. Access tight enough to slow the iron down. Every one of these gets flagged on the site walk and written into the quote as its own line, never discovered on an invoice.
Send photos and a rough scope to 512-400-2693 and you will have a same-day ballpark before we ever schedule the walk.
Every dirt job runs the same disciplined sequence, whether it is a barn pad or a hundred acre site.
Photos of the site, what you are building, and your town. You get an honest ballpark in machine days the same day, and a site walk on the calendar if it makes sense.
One page, real numbers: machines, days, transport, and any flagged contingency for rock or haul-off. If you have engineered plans, we price to the plan. If you do not, we help you decide what the ground needs.
We read the dirt in person: check how water moves, measure access, and look at what clearing or grubbing comes first. The plan gets built standing on the ground it applies to. None of this happens until you have approved the estimate.
The lowboy delivers the iron, usually within a few weeks. We stage where you tell us, work around stock and gates, and the job runs continuously until the dirt is done.
Clearing and grubbing first if the site needs it, then cuts, fills in compacted lifts, and grade. You are welcome on site every day, outside the swing radius, watching the ground change.
We walk the finished grade with you against the quote and the plan: pads, slopes, drainage, roads. Anything off gets fixed before the machines load. Then the ground is yours to build on.
Dirt work is won by matching the machine to the ground, and owning enough machines to actually do that. Our documented jobs show the range: a Komatsu D61 dozer grading a homesite in Evant, a Cat D1 cutting a pad and driveway in San Marcos, Cat 320 excavators running skeleton buckets on the Miranda Solar rescue in Tilden, and Tigercat and Barko mulchers ahead of the blade when the site starts as brush. Ten machines worked our biggest single project at once.
That range matters for your quote, not just our bragging rights. A machine too small burns days you pay for; a machine too big tears up ground it should be finishing. One of our clients put it better than we can: we are one of the few outfits with access to enough machine sizes to fit the job instead of forcing the job to fit the machine.
Every card links a full project page with dates, acreage, machines, and photos from the job. This is the proof most dirt contractors do not keep.
San Marcos: 8 acre homesite, pad and driveway graded
Evant: 18 acres selective, homesite graded with the D61
Tilden: 142 acre Miranda Solar rescue, Cat 320s sifting to spec
Rosebud: 1,200 acres, ten machines, 242 days
Elgin: 127 acres for the LCRA, wrapped in 37 days
Leander: dozer and excavator cutting a pond, our other dirt tradeThe cheapest yard of dirt on your project is the one that never leaves it. A good excavation plan balances cuts against fills so the dirt dug from the high corner becomes the pad in the low one. Haul-off is the silent killer of dirt budgets: the moment dirt gets on a truck, you pay to load it, haul it, and dump it, then pay again for import if the site runs short. We design the balance on the site walk, and our quotes say plainly whether your dirt stays home.
A pad that was pushed up in one afternoon will settle, and the slab on top of it will tell you about it for years. Real compaction is thin lifts, each moisture-conditioned and packed before the next goes on, the same discipline we build pond dams with. When an engineer has written a spec, we build to the spec and support the testing. When there is no engineer, we build like there was one, because the ground does not know the difference.
Water is the first thing we design for and the last thing we check. Every grade we cut answers one question: where does the rain go? Pads get crowned and shed water away from what will sit on them, roads get crowns and side drainage, swales carry storm water where it can do no harm. Flat-looking ground that drains is craft; flat ground that puddles is a callback, and we do not build callbacks.
A ranch road that fails every wet year usually got built as a bladed strip with caliche scattered on top. A road that lasts starts with a corridor cut to grade, a crowned running surface, and base material placed and compacted in lifts on ground that drains. It costs more the first time and less every year after, which is the whole trade this page keeps making.
West of I-35 the limestone starts fast, and in the granite country it never left. We know what this country does, we tell you what to expect, and the quote says in writing what happens if the dig meets rock the ripper cannot move: hammer time, billed by the day, flagged as a contingency you saw coming. The difference between a professional outfit and a cheap one is rarely the day rate. It is what happens at the first hard bucket.
The living top foot of your ground took a century to make, and one careless dozer pass to bury. We strip topsoil first, stockpile it clear of the work, and dress it back over the finished grades so the ground greens up the first season. It is one extra step of handling that separates a site that recovers from a scar that lingers.
This company gets customer service. They promptly contacted me, scheduled service within the week and promptly showed up each day of the project. The operator listened and provided fabulous service. Our 2 acre grading was done to our specs.
Cindy Pullin, Google review
Pierce cleared 36 acres for us in Spicewood, Texas. Will the operator was absolutely brilliant. Great comms / delivered as promised. Both Cedar eater and excavator work was top!
Wolfgang Maasberg, Google review
Taylor is a great guy and definitely knows his stuff. His level of experience can help to avoid problems before they happen. Also one of the few companies that has access to a variety of machine sizes to be able to tackle nearly any job.
Eric Fox, Google review
Based in Austin, running excavation and dirt work across Central Texas, and further for the right scope. These are some of the areas already asking us for dozer and dirt work.
Dirt work is scope priced: the size of the iron, the days it runs, transport, and any rock or haul-off contingency set the number, and we put it on paper before a machine loads. Send photos and a rough scope to 512-400-2693 and you will have a same-day ballpark in machine days. Our published day-rate logic is the same one behind our land clearing and pond pricing, so you can check us against our own site.
Excavation is moving dirt in bulk: cutting high ground, digging basins, hauling and placing fill. Grading is shaping the result: establishing the slopes, crowns, and drainage the finished ground needs, then the finish pass that makes it buildable or seedable. Most real projects need both, in that order, and pricing them together with one crew is cheaper than hiring them apart.
That is the whole point of our operation. We clear and mulch, grub the stumps and roots, cut and fill, compact the pad, and grade the finish, one crew and one plan from first tree to final grade. You skip the gaps between a clearing contractor, a grubbing sub, and a dirt outfit, and the quote covers the entire sequence.
In compacted lifts: thin layers of fill, each moisture-conditioned and packed before the next goes on, cut and filled to the plan elevations. Pushed-up pads settle because the middle was never compacted, and the slab finds out. If your build has an engineered spec we build to it and support density testing; if it does not, we build to the same standard anyway.
Yes, as a core service: corridor clearing, cut to grade, crowned running surface, and compacted base that survives the wet years. A road that fails every spring was usually bladed flat and topped with loose material. Ours are built as a drainage system you can drive on. The full details are on our ranch road construction page.
Every month. Pond and tank excavation is its own trade with its own page, including a published price list and a cost calculator, at our pond construction page. The short version: basins cut to a sealing plan, core trenches keyed, dams raised in compacted lifts, spillways cut to survive Texas storms.
Our home range is Central Texas, Austin out through the Hill Country, and we run documented projects well beyond it, including the Houston metro, Dallas and Fort Worth, and West Texas ranch country. For larger scopes the math travels easily: transport is a line item, not a mystery, and the quote shows it.
Photos, a rough scope, and your town get you a same-day ballpark, then a real number in machine days on paper, with rock carried as a flagged contingency billed by the day.