Where We Dig

When does the paperwork have to be done?

You need the building permit in hand before we start, because excavation counts as a stage of the work. Which department issues it depends on where your property sits — the City of Nanaimo, the District of Lantzville, or the Regional District of Nanaimo for Cedar, South Wellington and Extension — and we confirm which one applies at the site walk. In the RDN electoral areas the fee is $150 where the work is valued at $20,000 or less, $250 above that, plus 1% of anything over $20,000; Nanaimo and Lantzville set their own fees. We file for the permit as part of your quote, so it is one thing you do not have to chase yourself.

Pick the week you want to break ground and we will count backwards from it. The permit application and the locate request both have to go in ahead of that week, and they run at the same time, so we tell you the earliest start date based on whichever one takes longer. Tell us the week and we will work out when each one has to be filed. If the week you are after is already close, tell us anyway and we will tell you straight away whether it is doable or whether you are looking at the week after.

We work out which stage of the process your project needs, so you do not have to. What needs a permit depends on what you're building, not on how much dirt comes out. A big clean cut can need less paperwork than a small awkward one. Not everything needs a permit at all — our permits page sets out where the line sits on a low retaining wall, and plenty of drainage work, driveway work and general site tidying doesn't need one either.

Where a job needs a permit, we will not start digging ahead of it. So tell us the date you are hoping for as soon as you have one, even a rough one. Anything with a waiting period on it we can get moving while we are still working out the scope, and that is usually the part that holds a dig up.

Why the ground changes across the district

Most of this district sits on Nanaimo Group sandstone and shale under a blanket of glacial till, with pockets of well-draining Quadra Sand closer to the water. That ground is a big part of what your job costs. Sand digs fast and won't hold a face, so the cut goes wider and we move more material. Till is dense and slow and will stand near vertical, so the machine class we bring sets how long it takes. Where bedrock comes up, the job changes from digging to breaking and the rate changes with it. A breaker moves far less material in an hour than a bucket does, so even a short run of rock adds time. We've dug through all three — sand, till and bedrock — across Lantzville, Cedar, South Wellington and Extension, and we find out which one you've got when we walk your site.

What do we need from you before we book the date?

Once the price is agreed, there are a few practical things we need before we put you in the book. We need to know how we get in on the morning, so give us a gate code, a key, or somebody who will be there to open up. Tell us if there is a dog, because we would rather meet it with you standing there than find it. Tell us who else is working on the property that week, because two crews sharing one driveway costs both of them time. We also need somewhere for the truck to sit on the morning it lands. If the street is tight, or there is only a window when we can block it, say so and we will work to that. And tell us the days that do not suit you. We would rather move the date now than have you rearranging your week around us.

What happens if the job runs longer than we said?

Sometimes a job takes longer than we quoted, and you should hear that from us the moment we know. We can hit ground that is slower than it looked from the top. A run of bad weather can take a day out of your week. When that happens we stop, and we tell you what we have found, what it changes and what it does to the price. Nothing extra gets added unless you agree to it first. If the delay is on us, we say so, and you do not pay for it. You will never come home to a surprise on the invoice, because we have the conversation while the machine is still sitting there.