PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Cut and fill, pads, site prep and drainage across the Houston metro. Gulf Coast clay that moves when it is wet and holds water when it is not, worked by crews who plan around it instead of fighting it.
Houston sits on deep coastal clay with almost no fall to it, and both of those facts drive every dirt decision here. The clay swells when it takes water and shrinks when it dries, which is why pad prep and compaction matter more in this market than almost anywhere else in Texas. The flat is the other half: water does not leave on its own, so drainage has to be built rather than assumed.
Expansive clay is the reason slabs crack in this part of the state. A pad that was not built in compacted lifts on properly prepared subgrade will move with the seasons, and no amount of concrete fixes it afterward. We build to a compaction spec and we will tell you when your ground needs select fill brought in.
Almost no natural fall means drainage is engineered, not found. Swales, positive slope away from structures and somewhere for the runoff to actually land are part of the dirt work here, not an afterthought. Get it wrong and the first wet season tells you.
The full menu from our excavation and dirt work page, priced and planned for Houston ground.
Cut and fill is the whole job on most sites around Houston. 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 harris 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 Houston 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 Houston we will tell you honestly whether your ground will hold water before you commit.
The iron, the days, and the transport set the base. From there the site speaks: how much cut and fill, what compaction spec, what finish. Our day rates follow the same published logic as our clearing and pond work, so the quote can be sanity-checked against our own website. Photos to 512-400-2693 start the clock on a same-day ballpark.
Around Houston the number moves on three things: how much select fill has to be imported because the native clay will not compact to spec, how far spoil has to travel when there is nowhere on site to put it, and whether the job needs drainage built as well as dirt moved. Metro access and traffic windows matter too on tighter sites.
Pictures, a rough scope, and where the property sits. The ballpark comes back the same day, in machine days, off the same published logic as the rest of our site.
We probe, read the soil, check the access, and settle where the dirt should go while standing on it. No plan gets drawn from a satellite photo.
Machines, days, transport, and any rock or haul contingency, all in writing. The number you sign is the number you pay.
The lowboy delivers within a few weeks of a signed quote and the machines stay until the dirt is finished. No vanishing to other jobs mid-build.
Clearing first if the ground needs it, then cuts, compacted fills, and grade, in the order the finished site requires.
The last step is a lap around the work, checked against the quote. Anything short gets fixed before the machines load.
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 Houston 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 Houston, 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.
I highly recommend Pierce Land Clearing! They were incredibly responsive and had a crew on site within a few days of our initial contact. They worked for two days clearing the better part of our 19 acre site, and they were very reasonably priced. As a home builder, I have worked with a lot of clearing companies. I will definitely work with them again.
Ralph Sharp, Google review
I needed an easement squared-up, cleared and cleaned up. Spoke to the owner to get my quote. They scheduled and did a great job.
K Felix, Google review
Good communication. Professional. Worked fast but did a thorough job. The big mulcher did a great job of clearing land, including several large trees, and left a nice clean look.
Dow Fogleman, 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 select fill has to be imported because the native clay will not compact. 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 Harris County more than people expect, we will flag it before we start rather than build something that has to be redone.
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.
We build pads in moisture-conditioned compacted lifts to plan elevations. If your engineer requires density testing we build to the spec and support the schedule, and if there is no engineer we build like there was one.
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.
