Excavation and Dirt Work
General excavation with trackhoes, a dozer and dump trucks: digging, grading and moving dirt and rock on homesites, farms and rural land.
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Ground around Hartselle turns to rock in a hurry. The USGS maps limestone and sandstone under most of Morgan County. A house pad here can stop cutting halfway down, and a post-hole digger can quit on the first hole. Rock is the first thing we check on a Hartselle site.
Precision Excavation is based in Trinity, about 14 miles northwest of Hartselle. Excavation and dirt work is the core: digging, grading and moving dirt with trackhoes, a dozer and dump trucks. We also clear wooded and overgrown land, cut pads for houses, shops and barns, dig ponds and pull rock. Call or text (256) 303-7210 for a free estimate on your place.
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Morgan County sits on layered rock. USGS mapping puts limestone under more than half of the county. The Tuscumbia Limestone in that mix carries chert nodules, abundant in places. Chert is the hard, flinty stone that dulls a bucket and shows up in every load of dirt.
There is also a sandstone layer here that carries this town's name. The Hartselle Sandstone covers about a fifth of Morgan County at the surface, thick bedded and hard. Rock like that does not care what elevation your plan calls for. It comes out, gets worked around, or the grade moves.
Our trackhoes run rippers for exactly this. The tooth breaks the seam and lifts stone out in pieces the bucket can handle. That is how a pad gets to grade and a driveway base stops riding on a ledge. Ripping works in layered rock, and when a site is solid ledge, pulling rock has limits we will explain.
Morgan County still farms. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 1,102 farms here on 140,181 acres, averaging 127 acres apiece. Almost 40,000 of those acres are pasture and another 36,000 are woodland. Four out of five run under 180 acres, so the clearing here is mostly small tracts.
Hartselle grew up on timber. Logging and sawmilling carried the town until the early 1930s, and it ginned cotton besides. That history is still in the ground: old field edges, old fence lines, woods cut over more than once. Land that sits idle a few years fills in fast.
Chinese privet is usually what you are fighting. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System calls it a serious problem for farmers and land managers statewide. Extension also notes privet sprouts back hard from stumps and roots, so grinding the top does not finish it. That is worth knowing when you choose between mulching brush in place and pulling stumps and roots out for good.
Water off this part of Morgan County runs to Flint Creek. It rises in northern Cullman County and runs north through Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge to the Tennessee River at Decatur. Falkville, five miles south of Hartselle, drains into it by way of Robinson Creek and Painter Branch. Low ground and old ditches hold water after a wet stretch, and soft ground changes how a job runs.
Stock ponds go with pasture, and Morgan County has close to 40,000 acres of pasture. We dig new ponds, reshape old ones and clean out ponds that have silted in. The dozer shapes the bank and the embankment while the trackhoe digs and loads. Spoil gets spread on the place or hauled off in the dump trucks.
The 35640 ZIP covers about 107 square miles, and most of that is county land. Nanceford Road, Bethel Road and Vaughn Bridge Road all run out into it. A long drive needs a cut base, a crown so water sheds, and a ditch beside it. We build new gravel drives and farm roads and regrade the ones that rut and wash.
Hartselle held about 15,500 people at the 2020 census, up from about 14,300 ten years before. The city sits roughly two miles west of I-65, with exits at Thompson Road and Main Street. US-31 runs north and south through the middle of it, and AL-36 crosses east and west. Around all of that is open county ground where people build.
Pads for houses, shops, barns and metal buildings are part of the work here. We clear the footprint, then cut to grade or build the ground up with fill in packed lifts. Our dozer spreads and packs each lift while the trackhoe cuts and loads. Utilities get marked through Alabama 811 before the first cut, and rocky spots come out with the ripper.
Old structures come down too. A leaning barn, an empty house, a shed or an old slab comes down with the trackhoe. The owner and the utility company handle the utility shutoff, and the city or county handles permits. Our dump trucks haul the debris off and the site gets graded back.
Communities and areas we serve around Hartselle: Hartselle Downtown Commercial Historic District, Sparkman Park, Main Street, Sparkman Street, Thompson Road, Nanceford Road, Bethel Road, Vaughn Bridge Road, Cedar Creek Road, Hartselle-Morgan County Regional Airport, Danville, Falkville.
Hartselle ZIP codes served: 35640.
Free estimates throughout Morgan County and the surrounding area.
(256) 303-7210 General excavation with trackhoes, a dozer and dump trucks: digging, grading and moving dirt and rock on homesites, farms and rural land.
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We clear wooded lots and overgrown acreage with the dozer and trackhoe. Trees and stumps come out, the debris gets hauled off, and the ground is left rough graded.
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We mulch brush, briars and small trees in place with a skid steer mulching head. The wood ends up as a mulch layer on the ground.
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We run a crawler dozer for pushing brush, rough grading and leveling ground across North Alabama. That covers spreading fill, cutting pads, reclaiming grown-up pasture and shaping pond banks and road beds.
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We build house pads for new homes, barns, shops and metal buildings on lots across North Alabama. Fill comes in by the load, goes down in packed lifts and gets graded so water runs away from the building.
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Rock removal for house pads, driveways, ponds, pastures and fence lines across North Alabama. Trackhoes with rippers break the rock loose, and the dump trucks haul it off.
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We dig new farm ponds, enlarge old ones and clean out ponds that have silted in. The trackhoe cuts the basin, the dozer shapes the bank, and the spoil gets spread or hauled off.
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We build new gravel driveways and farm roads, and regrade old ones that have rutted or washed out. Base cut, crown shaped, ditches cut, rock hauled in and graded out.
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We tear down old houses, barns, sheds, mobile homes and concrete slabs with the trackhoe. The dump trucks haul the debris off and the ground gets leveled behind us.
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Two dump trucks move material by the load across North Alabama. Fill dirt, topsoil, gravel, crusher run and chert come in, spoil and debris go out.
Learn MoreA few of the questions we hear most around Hartselle. If yours is not here, call or text and ask.
Tell us what you need done and where the property is. Call or text (256) 303-7210, or send the form and we will get back to you.
Tell us about the job. We will get right back to you.