Residential Demolition
We tear down houses, mobile homes, and double wides across the Midlands. Full size excavators and dozers do the work, and the lot is left graded and clean. Free estimates from our West Columbia shop.
Our Services
A gravel driveway is the cheapest way to get solid, all weather access to a house or a shop. We install gravel driveways in West Columbia and across the Midlands. Some are eighty feet off a county road, others a quarter mile back to a home site. Both start the same way, with the soft dirt stripped off and a stone base built to hold weight. Stone laid straight on topsoil sinks and ruts the first wet winter.
Dirt Cheap is a family run business working out of a shop on Edmund Highway in West Columbia. Our crew runs the equipment and is on job sites daily, and a real person picks up the office phone. We work a fifty mile circle around Columbia, which reaches out to Newberry and Camden. Our machines are full size excavators and dozers, and a tri axle dump truck brings the stone. Estimates are free, so call (803) 796-4727 and we will come look at the drive.
Tell us about the structure, lot or job and we will get right back to you.
We come out and look at the ground before anything gets priced. We check where water runs, how soft the dirt is, and where the drive meets the road. If the path is grown up, pushing a lane through standing timber and brush comes first. We then strip the topsoil down to firm ground, since topsoil holds water and shifts under a loaded truck. The dirt and brush we pull out leave on our own trucks as part of the job.
On soft or wet ground we roll out woven fabric first, so the stone cannot work down into the mud. Crusher run is the usual base stone here, because the dust in it locks the rock together as it packs. Depth depends on what runs over the drive, since a loaded truck needs more base than a car. We lay the stone in lifts and pack each lift, rather than dumping the full depth at once. Then we shape a crown, a slight hump down the center, so rain sheds to the shoulders instead of standing. Where the drive crosses a ditch we set a culvert pipe at the ditch bottom and stone over it.
Gravel is the cheapest driveway surface to install, which is why long rural drives use it instead of poured concrete. What yours costs comes down to how much stone the drive needs and how much work happens under it. A short flat drive off a paved road takes a fraction of the stone a quarter mile drive does. Width matters as much as length, and so does the depth of the base. Soft ground means a deeper cut, fabric, and more stone to get something that holds.
A few other things move the number. A slope needs heavier top stone and shoulders that carry water off the drive. Clearing a grown up path costs more than putting stone on a lane that already exists. A ditch crossing adds pipe, and a turnaround or parking pad adds square footage. Distance from the quarry counts too, since those miles ride in the price per ton. Estimates are free, and you get a real number once we have seen the ground. Call (803) 796-4727.
Ground around here runs from sandy Sandhills dirt to heavy red clay, and both give a driveway trouble. Sand will not hold a shape, so stone spreads out and works down into it. Red clay turns slick when it stays wet, and mud pumps up through the rock. Then a summer storm parks over the county and drops rain faster than the ground takes it. Water with nowhere to go cuts a channel straight down the middle of the drive. Long rural drives get the worst of it, since water gathers speed over that much run.
Fixing a rutted drive starts with the high berm between the ruts. That ridge gets cut down and pulled back into the low spots where the material belongs. Then we reshape the crown, lay fresh stone over it, and pack it back down. Washboard ripples come from the same problem, a surface with no crown and no fines left in it. When water runs onto the drive from a hill, a ditch line or a pipe beats more rock. On a new build we can shape the house pad and grade the yard in the same trip.
Free, no-obligation estimates across the Midlands, from our West Columbia shop.
(803) 796-4727From the first call to clean ground, here is how it goes.
Tell us what you need gone or built: a house, a mobile home, an overgrown lot, a driveway, a septic system. Our office gets you on the schedule fast.
We come see the property, look at access and what has to leave, and give you a written number. The estimate is free and the price covers the work we agreed on.
Our crew runs the equipment on site. Full size excavators and dozers handle the teardown or dirt work, and debris leaves on our own trucks as part of the job.
The site gets graded out, filled where it needs it, and left ready for what comes next: a new build, a driveway, a septic system or just a clean lot.
Common questions about gravel driveways across the Midlands. Don't see yours? Give us a call and ask.
We tear down houses, mobile homes, and double wides across the Midlands. Full size excavators and dozers do the work, and the lot is left graded and clean. Free estimates from our West Columbia shop.
Dirt Cheap tears down commercial buildings across the South Carolina Midlands. Strip malls, churches, warehouses and condemned structures come down with full-size excavators and dozers. We work out of a shop in West Columbia.
We clear wooded and overgrown lots across the Midlands, half acre house sites and multi acre tracts alike. Full size excavators and dozers take out the trees, the brush, and the stumps. Our shop is in West Columbia and estimates are free.
Grading and site prep out of our West Columbia shop. We cut building pads, level low yards, and reshape wet ground so water runs off. Estimates are free anywhere in the Midlands.
Dirt Cheap digs site excavation, utility and drainage trenches, and storm drain repairs across the Midlands. Our shop sits in West Columbia, and we run full size excavators and dozers. Estimates are free.
Dirt Cheap pours concrete driveways, patios, walkways, and slabs around West Columbia. Our excavators strip and pack the ground before any concrete goes down. Estimates are free.
Full size CASE excavators, dozers and a tri axle Kenworth dump truck. Machines sized for two story houses, commercial buildings and whole lots. A mini excavator crew cannot do this work.
One contractor takes the structure down, clears the lot, brings in fill, grades it flat and can finish with gravel, concrete or a septic system. No handoffs between companies, no waiting on a second crew.
Hauling off the mess is part of the job, on our own trucks. The site gets cleaned as the teardown happens, so when the machines load up and leave, the lot is done.
The shop sits on Edmund Highway, so Columbia, Lexington and Cayce are minutes away. Family and woman owned. Call and you talk to our office, not a call center.
A structure that needs to come down, a lot that needs clearing, a driveway that needs help, a septic system going in? Call or send the form and we will come look at the property and price the job. The estimate is free.
Tell us about the structure, lot or job and we will get right back to you.