Serving the Regional District of Nanaimo
Excavation & Site Preparation, Nanaimo
Nanaimo Excavators provides excavation and site preparation across Nanaimo and the Regional District of Nanaimo, from lot clearing through foundation digs to finished driveways. Crews run Class 4 to Class 8 excavators and cover Lantzville, Cedar, South Wellington and Extension.
- Fully Insured
- BC 1 Call Locates On Every Dig
- WorkSafeBC-Compliant Trenching
- Class 4–8 Machines
Text or call (778) 762-2194
Get a quote
Tell us the job and we'll get back to you with a written quote.
How we quote
How It Works
Tell us about the job
Call or text us with the address and what needs digging — a foundation, a drainage line, a driveway, or clearing a lot.
We walk your property
We check access, slope, where the utilities run and where the spoil can go, then call in locates before any machine moves.
You get a written quote
We quote the machine class, the timeline and what's included, with nothing left for later.
What Nanaimo Excavators does
What We Dig
One local crew, one clear quote — we run site prep, foundation digs, drainage and driveway work with our own Class 4–8 equipment, start to finish.
Site Prep & Grading
We clear the lot, strip the topsoil and grade the pad level so it's ready for forms, gravel or landscaping.
Footings & Foundation Work
We dig to your drawings, cut the building area to grade and compact the base before the forms go up.
Drainage & French Drains
We install perimeter drains, French drains and daylight outlets that move water away from your foundation.
Driveways & Access Roads
We cut, grade and compact driveways and access roads to carry vehicle loads through an Island winter.
Pricing
What It Costs
Site prep, foundation digs and drainage work are quoted from a walk of the property once the job's scope is set.
| Machine class | Rate / hour |
|---|---|
| Mini, Class 1–3 | $142–$169 |
| Standard, Class 4–8 | $180–$248 |
| Larger, Class 9–12 | $257–$398 |
Island Equipment Owners Association Suggested Rate Guide, effective 1 January 2026. Operator included, transport excluded.
We walk your property before we quote, because access, slope, soil and haul distance are what changes the price for your job.
Which machine does your job actually need?
Machine class is the single biggest lever on what a dig costs, and it is not a preference — it is arithmetic. The published rate guide our pricing follows splits excavators into bands, and each band buys you a different amount of work per hour.
A mini in the smallest band is the machine that fits. It gets through a side gate, works in a back garden, tracks over a finished driveway without wrecking it, and turns in spaces a bigger machine cannot enter. What it does not do is move material quickly. On anything with real volume it becomes the expensive option precisely because it is the cheap one per hour — you end up paying for more hours than the job needed.
The mid-range machines we run are the working size for most residential and light commercial digs. They have the reach for a foundation, the breakout to get through firm ground, and the bucket capacity to load a truck without a dozen passes, and they still fit on an ordinary lot with reasonable access. The largest bands are production machines: they earn their higher rate on volume — a big cut, a long service run, a site where trucks are queuing — and they lose money on a small job, because the mobilisation and the float do not shrink to match the work.
The trap is assuming the lowest hourly rate gives the lowest price. It rarely does. A machine one band up can halve the hours, and once you add the operator, the float and the day itself, the bigger machine often finishes cheaper as well as sooner. The reverse is just as true: put a production machine on a tight lot and you pay for a float, a bigger ticket and a slower day spent fighting for room.
So we size the machine to the work, the access and the volume, in that order. We look at what has to come out, where a truck can reach, how tight the gates and corners are, and whether the ground will break easily or fight us. Then we tell you which band the job wants and why — including when that is smaller and cheaper than you were expecting. Where a job genuinely straddles two bands we will say so and give you both numbers rather than picking one and hoping.
Local, across the Regional District of Nanaimo
Where We Dig
Much of Nanaimo sits over glacial till and the Nanaimo Group's sandstone and shale, with pockets of well-draining Quadra Sand closer to the water. We adjust the dig, the shoring and where the spoil goes to whatever the machine actually finds on your property.
Frequently asked
Questions We Get
- Do I need to call before I dig on Vancouver Island?
- Yes. BC 1 Call is free and members respond within three working days. A ticket is valid 30 days from the request date, and digging must start within 14 days of the locate.
- How deep can a trench go before it needs shoring?
- Any excavation over 1.2 metres that a worker enters has to be sloped, benched, engineered or shored under WorkSafeBC's regulation — we plan the method before the machine arrives.
- What does excavation cost in Nanaimo?
- Hourly machine rates on Vancouver Island run from about $142 to $398 depending on the excavator class. Site prep and foundation digs are priced from a walk of the property.