Serving the Cowichan Valley
Excavation and site preparation in Lake Cowichan
River-corridor ground, forestry-road access, and the longest haul in the service area.
Free, no-obligation quote
Excavation quote request
The more detail about the property and the work, the closer the first number will be. We send a written quote after we visit your site.
Duncan Excavating operates in Lake Cowichan, an incorporated municipality in the Cowichan Valley where we bill machine time at $125 to $165 an hour. Because facilities that take soil, sod and stumps sit back down the Cowichan Valley, haulage for every load is usually the largest line on your quote and travel appears as a separate line.
The town is far enough up the valley that the arithmetic changes. We do the same work there as anywhere else; it just costs more to get a machine in and the material out.
Machine travel is billed as transport on top of our four-hour minimum, so a quote here includes that move plus the round trip for every load of spoil leaving your site.
Why does the haul cost so much here?
The CVRD's recycling centres accept rubble at $94 per tonne and clean untreated lumber at $165, but take no rock, sod, dirt or stumps at all, so excavation spoil from a property up here travels to a private facility further down the valley. Equipment is generally billed with a minimum charge plus transport, and trucking hourly with its own minimum. The same job costs more here than on the valley floor, because the truck has further to go. Meade Creek is the nearest CVRD facility for the material it does accept.
A municipality with its own rules
Because Lake Cowichan is an incorporated municipality, local town bylaws apply within municipal borders. We check the town's Building Regulations Bylaw and fee schedules before starting your project. Outside the boundary the Cowichan Valley Regional District's building bylaw applies instead, which means two adjoining properties on the same road can answer to different building authorities, with different application requirements and different timelines. Provincial rules do not change either way: the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation sets a 30 metre assessment strip along every stream measured from the stream boundary, and defines development to include the addition, removal or alteration of soil. Along a river system like this one, that definition covers most of what an excavator does.
Got a project in or around Lake Cowichan? We'll list the travel and the haul as their own lines once you request a quote.
Excavation services
- Lot Clearing and GradingLand clearing in Duncan and the Cowichan Valley — brush, stumps, topsoil, grading. We walk your lot first, then quote each stage and the haul-out separately.
- Driveways and CulvertsDriveways, access road grading and culverts in the Cowichan Valley. We handle the access permits on provincial and municipal roads for you.
Nearby service areas
Ready for a quote on excavation in Duncan?
We quote excavation across the Cowichan Valley after a site visit.