About Nanaimo Excavators

How we work

We file locates before we dig, shore or bench anything past 1.2 metres, and haul spoil and disposal to the right facility instead of leaving it behind. If your site needs an engineer or a permit before we can start, we tell you before we quote, not after.

We work across Nanaimo, Lantzville, Cedar, South Wellington and Extension — the ground changes from one community to the next, and we adjust the approach rather than dig everywhere the same way.

What Class 4–8 actually means for your job

Machine class is the first decision on any dig and it gets made on the ground, not by preference. A mini gets into a back yard and works around services; a standard machine moves several times the material an hour and pays for itself the moment the volume justifies it. We run Class 4 to Class 8, which is the mid-range in the Island Equipment Owners Association's guide and the right size for most residential and small commercial work — foundation digs, driveways, drainage runs and lot clearing. Where a job genuinely needs something bigger or smaller, we say so at the site walk rather than forcing the machine we happen to own onto your site.

Where does the spoil sit while we work?

Every pile has to go somewhere, and where it sits is a safety decision before it is a tidiness one. Spoil stays at least 60 centimetres back from the edge of any excavation, because material stacked at the lip loads the face and is one of the ways a wall lets go. On a working site that setback competes with everything else you need room for — the machine's swing, the truck's turning circle, the route to the back of the property, and whatever has to stay reachable while we are there.

So we plan the staging before the first bucket comes out. We work out what is coming out, what is going back in, and what has to leave, then place each of those separately rather than building one pile and sorting it later. Topsoil that is going back on the finished grade gets its own stockpile away from the cut. Material returning as backfill sits where the machine can reach it without tracking back and forth. Anything leaving goes closest to where the truck can get to it.

If your property genuinely has not got room for all three, we tell you at the walk and price the haul, because discovering it halfway through means a truck booked at short notice and a crew waiting on it. Getting the staging right is quiet work that never shows in the finished job, and it is most of the difference between a tidy week and an expensive one.

What you get in writing

Your quote names the machine class, the estimated hours, the disposal and haul costs, and anything the site itself adds — slope, access, rock, a high water table. We keep those on separate lines so if one of them changes you can see exactly what moved. We confirm the number before we start, and if we hit something the locate couldn't show us, we stop and talk it through with you before we keep digging.