Excavation and land clearing in Saco, Maine.
Saco has room to build. The city covers about 38.6 square miles of land, and outside the downtown and beach neighborhoods much of it is woods, fields and wetland stretching toward Buxton and Dayton. House sites, additions, driveways and drainage fixes all start with clearing and excavation.
In Saco the machines and the operators are ours: clearing a lot, digging for a foundation, cutting drainage trenches and working retention ponds all stay with a single crew, start to finish.
Permits first near the river and the bay
The Saco River Corridor Commission defines significant earthmoving, grading, dredging, filling and building as development requiring its permit within 500 feet of the river, or up to 1,000 feet where the floodplain runs wider. It also keeps a 75-foot no-cut zone inland from the shoreline, where only selective cutting is allowed and never to open a view. Clearing a house lot in that band starts with the permit and a marked limit of work.
Along the coast and around wetlands, state shoreland zoning covers land within 250 feet and limits clearing in the buffer to openings of 250 square feet and no more than 40 percent of tree volume in ten years. The city's code office administers those rules, and silt fence and prompt stabilization go in before stumps come out.
Digging in wet ground and moving wood
River-valley soils in this part of Maine can be slow to drain. The NRCS describes the Buxton series, formed in glaciomarine deposits, as showing saturation within about 24 inches of the surface, and floodplain soils like the Saco series flood in spring. Foundation and trench work on such ground is scheduled for drier months, with dewatering and underdrains planned before the hole is open.
Wood from clearing has its own rule. York County is entirely within the Maine Forest Service emerald ash borer quarantine, and hardwood firewood cannot be moved out of the quarantined area without Forest Service approval, so cleared ash and other hardwood are handled with that in mind.
Drainage trenching is often the reason for a dig in the first place. Wet basements, soggy lawns and driveways that ice over usually trace back to water with nowhere to go, and a trench with perforated pipe and clean stone carries it to a planned outlet. On commercial sites, the same equipment keeps retention ponds mowed and their inlets and outlets trenched open so stormwater systems work as designed.
Land Clearing · Site Work · Trenching
How we handle excavation & land clearing
We run our own excavation equipment, which means one crew takes your project from raw ground to ready: land clearing, foundation and site excavation, drainage trenching, and retention pond mowing and trenching for commercial properties.
See the full excavation & land clearing service page or everything we do in Saco, Maine.
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- Tree & Shrub Services in Saco
- Tree Removal in Saco
Free Estimates
Excavation & Land Clearing in Saco? Let's talk.
Tell us about your property and we will walk it with you — free estimates, straight answers, stonework guaranteed to hold its lines.
Mon–Sat 7:00am – 5:00pm · Based in Cumberland, Maine