Excavation & Site Preparation · Duncan
Lot Clearing and Grading in Duncan
Brush, stumps, topsoil and grading — with the haul route worked out before the machine starts.
Duncan Excavating clears brush, stumps and topsoil and grades building sites across the Cowichan Valley. Disposal routing is part of the work here: CVRD recycling centres accept rubble at $94 per tonne but take no stumps, sod or dirt, so cleared material travels to a private facility at Cobble Hill.
Clearing is the part of a project where the surprises live. What is standing on a lot is visible from the road; what is underneath it is not, and in this valley that changes over a few kilometres.
No excavation contractor on Vancouver Island publishes a price list for clearing work. Cost tracks the area being cleared, how much of the material is stump and root rather than soil, the haul distance to a facility that will accept it, and whether there is room on site to turn a loaded truck.
What comes off, and where it goes
A clearing job produces three separate streams and they do not go to the same place. Clean untreated wood is accepted at the CVRD's recycling centres at $165 per tonne, and rubble — asphalt, brick, concrete, gravel and rock — at $94. Stumps, sod, dirt and general land-clearing debris are not accepted there at all, so that material goes to a private facility such as Fisher Road Recycling at Cobble Hill, which publishes no rates and quotes at the scale. That split is the single biggest reason two clearing quotes on similar lots come back different.
Grading to a level someone can build on
Grading is the difference between a cleared lot and a buildable one. Levels come off the drawings or the surveyor's stakes, and the finished surface has to shed water in a direction that does not create a problem for the neighbour downhill. Where a building permit is involved, the Cowichan Valley Regional District requires a permit to construct or structurally repair a retaining wall, and fill slopes steeper than 1:2 need a professional engineer's certification.
What a clearing scope usually covers
Brush and undergrowth removal
Clearing standing brush and undergrowth back to workable ground.
Stump and root removal
Stumps out and separated for haul, rather than buried on site.
Topsoil stripping and stockpiling
Topsoil stripped and stockpiled where it can be reused, or loaded out.
Rough and finish grading
Site graded to drawing levels and left shedding water as designed.
How a clearing job runs
- 1
Walk the lot — Access width, slope, what is actually standing, and where a truck can turn. This is also where the rock question gets answered, because it changes the machine.
- 2
Locates before anything moves — BC 1 Call requests are free and members respond within three working days, or five for large projects. The ticket requires work to begin within 14 calendar days.
- 3
Clear, separate, haul — Wood, rubble and soil are separated on site rather than at the scale, because mixed loads are the expensive kind.
- 4
Grade and hand over — Finished levels checked against the drawings, with the site left shedding water the way it was designed to.
Local conditions
Ground on the Cowichan Valley floor is river sand and gravel laid down by the Cowichan and Koksilah, unconfined and running to roughly 30 metres. It digs easily. The Geological Survey of Canada mapped the wider valley as laminated silts and clays, gravels and stony till below about 150 metres elevation, and above that line bedrock is at surface or under a thin veneer. That is why a lot at Mill Bay, where near-surface bedrock under a metre has been mapped across most of the area, behaves nothing like a lot outside Duncan.
In practice
- Situation
- An acreage above Cowichan Bay, roughly two hectares of mixed alder and brush, cleared ahead of a building permit application.
- Complication
- Most of the parcel sat inside the Agricultural Land Reserve, where about 70 per cent of that plan area is designated, so soil could not simply be moved off site.
- Resolution
- A Notice of Intent went to the Agricultural Land Commission ahead of the work, with the statutory 60 days built into the schedule rather than discovered halfway through.
People also ask
Is a permit needed to clear trees on private property?
It depends on the authority. North Cowichan states plainly that it does not have a tree protection bylaw, though Development Permit Area 3 and Development Permit Area 4 still apply. The City of Duncan does have one, Bylaw No. 3135, requiring a permit for any tree 30 centimetres or more in diameter at breast height.
Can cleared material be buried on site?
Not as a default. On land in the Agricultural Land Reserve, fill placement needs a Notice of Intent to the Agricultural Land Commission, and construction and demolition waste, asphalt, glass, treated wood and unchipped lumber are prohibited in fill outright.
What time of year is best for clearing?
Ground conditions favour the drier months. Groundwater in the lower Cowichan is shallowest from November through January and deepest from June to September, and there is a second constraint: nesting habitat is protected year-round under the federal Migratory Bird Convention Act, with the local nesting season running from late March to mid-August.
Serving nearby communities
Keep exploring
- Compare excavation costsTODO: cost guide blurb.
- Permits and setbacksTODO: permits guide blurb.
- Footings and FoundationsExcavation and backfill for footings and foundation walls across the Cowichan Valley, cut to surveyor's levels and planned around a winter water table.
- Driveways and CulvertsRural driveways, turnarounds and culvert crossings across the Cowichan Valley, including the access permits that apply on provincial and municipal roads.
- Duncan Excavating home
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