Guelph excavating contractor
Guelph Excavation Pros is a local excavation company that digs, grades and hauls for homeowners, builders and property managers. We run our own machines out of a yard on Royal Rd and take on residential and commercial work across Guelph and everywhere within a 30-minute drive.
Our excavation services run from a single sewer lateral or pool hole to full foundations, basement walkouts, septic beds, roads and parking lots. Every job starts with Ontario One Call locates and finishes with compacted backfill and a final grade that sheds water away from the building.
In more than 10 years and over 500 jobs, our excavating contractor crews have learned the clay till, shallow dolostone and high spring water tables that make Guelph ground its own challenge. We are licensed, insured and WSIB covered, and we put the price in writing before a bucket touches the ground.
18 services, one crew
We offer 18 excavation services, grouped below by the kind of job you are planning. Each one links to its own page with the process, materials, permits and typical cost for that work.
Foundation excavation for new homes, additions and garages, dug to the footing depth on your drawings. Basement excavation for full new basements or extra headroom under an existing house.
Basement walkout and egress window excavation suits owners adding a basement apartment or a door out to the backyard.
Where workers enter a trench deeper than 1.2 m (4 ft), O. Reg. 213/91 requires the walls to be sloped, shored or protected by a trench box, unless the cut is in sound rock. Our shoring and underpinning excavation service supports deep digs beside existing footings, lot lines and roads where there is no room to slope back.
Grading and levelling fixes yards that slope toward the house and sets new lots to the approved grading plan. Landscape earthworks and soil removal moves topsoil, fill and spoil for landscapers and homeowners.
Site preparation and land clearing strips brush, stumps and topsoil so a build starts on firm, level ground.
Utility, sewer, water and storm line excavation covers new service connections, collapsed clay laterals and frozen water lines, laid back below frost depth.
Rural Wellington County homes run on private septic systems, and our septic system excavation crews dig tanks and leaching beds in Puslinch, Guelph/Eramosa and Centre Wellington to the designer's Part 8 layout.
Pool and pond excavation digs holes for fibreglass, vinyl and concrete pools, plus lined garden ponds and farm ponds. Retaining walls in armour stone or segmental block hold back the slopes that come with walkouts, pools and hilly lots.
Demolition takes down garages, sheds, decks and small buildings, with debris sorted for recycling. Concrete breaking and removal clears old driveways, patios, slabs and footings.
Swimming pool removal breaks out and fills in an unwanted inground pool with compacted fill, so the yard is usable again.
Driveway excavation and preparation removes soft soil and builds a Granular A base that will not rut. For businesses and developers, parking lot construction and road construction cover subgrade, granular base and grading to the civil drawings, ready for the paving crew.
Guelph takes almost all of its drinking water from groundwater wells, so a forgotten buried fuel tank is a bigger worry here than in a lake-fed city. Our oil tank and contaminated soil removal service lifts the tank, tests the soil and documents the job for insurers and buyers.
Residential excavation is most of our work, and most of it happens in backyards with a fence, a garden and a neighbour a few metres away. We size the machine to the gate, lay ground mats over the lawn and plan where the spoil pile and dump truck will sit before we arrive.
These are the jobs Guelph homeowners call us for most often:
Most residential digs take 1 to 3 days on site. We protect driveways with plywood, sweep the street and leave the yard graded and ready for sod or seed.
For builders and developers
Few Guelph-based excavators are set up for commercial excavation, so general contractors often have to look further afield. We work for builders, developers and property managers on site servicing, earthworks and paving preparation, with the paperwork a prime contractor needs before we set foot on site.
We send a prequalification package with every commercial quote: our WSIB clearance certificate, certificate of insurance and health and safety program. Excess soil leaving a commercial site is planned under O. Reg. 406/19 from the start, so soil does not hold up the schedule.
What to expect
Every dig runs through the same five steps, whether it is a pool hole or a 200 m service trench. Two of them, utility locates and permit close-out, are the ones a rushed contractor tends to skip.
We visit for free, measure gate width and access, check slope and soil and look for overhead wires and trees. You get a written scope listing depth, haul-away, backfill material and price, so there are no surprises later.
We request Ontario One Call locates on every job; a single address takes 5 business days. Where a building permit is needed, the owner or designer usually applies, and we book our work around the inspections so the permit can be closed.
We bring a machine sized to the site, from a mini excavator for backyards to a 20 t excavator for basements and servicing. Spoil is stockpiled for reuse or hauled, and excess soil leaving the property is handled under O. Reg. 406/19 where it applies.
Backfill goes in 200 to 300 mm (8 to 12 in) lifts, each compacted with a plate compactor or roller instead of being dumped in one pass. The final grade slopes away from the building, because this is the step where cheap jobs settle and fail a year later.
We lift the ground mats and plywood, sweep the road and driveway and rake out the work area. Then we walk the site with you, so any touch-ups are done before the machine leaves.
Typical price ranges
Most residential excavation in Guelph is priced as a fixed quote for the whole job, while small jobs of a few hours are billed at an hourly machine rate. The ranges below are typical for the Guelph area, and your written quote is fixed after a site visit.
| Job type | Typical range | Main cost drivers |
|---|---|---|
| Mini excavator with operator | $110 to $160 per hour | Minimum hours, float charge to deliver the machine |
| Pool dig, fibreglass or vinyl | $3,000 to $8,000 | Pool size, access, soil haul-away |
| Addition or garage foundation dig | $4,000 to $12,000 | Depth, footprint, backfill material |
| New home foundation excavation | $12,000 to $35,000 | Basement depth, rock, haul distance |
| Basement walkout excavation | $6,000 to $15,000 | Depth, retaining walls, machine access |
| Water or sewer service replacement | $6,000 to $20,000 | Length, depth, road or sidewalk crossing |
| Yard regrading and drainage | $2,500 to $10,000 | Area, fill needed, catch basins |
| Septic system replacement | $20,000 to $45,000 | System type, bed size, soil and water table |
| Inground pool removal | $8,000 to $20,000 | Full or partial removal, fill volume, access |
Four things move almost every price: depth, access, how much soil leaves the site and whether we hit rock or groundwater. Hauling and tipping clean soil commonly adds $300 to $600 per tandem load, and breaking dolostone with a hydraulic hammer is slower than digging till.
Guelph ground changes from street to street, and it changes what a dig costs. Most lots have 150 to 300 mm (6 to 12 in) of clay-loam topsoil over dense glacial till, a mix of clay, silt, sand and stones left behind by the last ice sheet.
Till digs well with a toothed bucket and holds a trench wall for a short time, but it turns to sticky paste in a wet April. We avoid putting wet till back against a foundation and use clear stone or Granular B instead, so the backfill drains and does not settle.
In parts of the city, dolostone bedrock sits close to the surface. When the bucket meets rock, we switch to a hydraulic hammer (hoe ram), which slows the dig and raises the price, so we flag that risk in the quote.
Near the Speed and Eramosa rivers, the water table can sit within a metre or two of the surface in spring. Basement and servicing digs there may need pumps running in the hole and a dry-weather window.
Our 30-minute radius
We work within about a 30-minute drive of our Guelph yard, which covers six towns and the rural townships between them. The drive times below are typical outside rush hour, along with the jobs we are called for most in each town.
| Town | Approx. drive time | Common jobs |
|---|---|---|
| Guelph | 5 to 20 minutes | Foundations, walkouts, sewer laterals, regrading |
| Puslinch | 15 to 25 minutes | Septic systems, rural driveways, pool digs on large lots |
| Kitchener | 20 to 30 minutes | Basement walkouts, service line replacement, pool digs |
| Cambridge | 20 to 30 minutes | Pool removal, retaining walls, commercial site preparation |
| Waterloo | 25 to 30 minutes | Additions, egress windows, drainage fixes |
| Milton | 25 to 30 minutes | New-build site work, driveways, rural septic near Campbellville |
We also work in smaller communities inside that radius, such as Rockwood, Aberfoyle and Morriston.
Quick answers to the questions we hear most at site visits.
A mini excavator with operator typically costs $110 to $160 per hour in Guelph, a mid-size 8 to 14 t excavator $140 to $200 and a full-size machine $180 to $250, plus a float charge to deliver it. A tandem dump truck adds roughly $100 to $140 per hour.
Hourly billing suits small, simple jobs. For anything longer than a day, a fixed quote is usually better value because you know the total before we start.
Yes. Under Ontario law, anyone digging must request utility locates first, even for fence posts or a garden bed, and the service is free.
We request locates for every job we do. Allow 5 business days for a single address, and longer during the April to June rush.
It depends on the scope. Foundations, additions, walkouts and septic systems need a building permit, while bringing in fill or changing grades can need a permit under the City's Site Alteration By-law.
Work near rivers, wetlands and floodplains may also need a Grand River Conservation Authority permit under O. Reg. 41/24. We tell you at the site visit which permits apply and who applies for each one.
Usually, yes. Our smallest mini excavator is about 1 m (39 in) wide and fits through most standard gates, and where it does not, we remove a fence panel and put it back when we finish.
Ground mats go down from the gate to the dig, so the lawn takes the weight without rutting.
Where we can, we reuse it on site for backfill or grading. Excess soil goes to a licensed receiving site or an approved reuse site, following Ontario's excess soil rules in O. Reg. 406/19.
Good topsoil is worth keeping, so we stockpile it for final landscaping unless you ask us to haul it away.
Yes, we dig year-round. Frost in Guelph can reach about 1.2 m (4 ft) in a cold winter, and frozen ground has to be broken with a ripper tooth or thawed with ground heaters before the bucket can work.
Expect winter digs to take 10 to 30% longer and to cost more for heaters and insulated blankets that protect footings and fresh concrete. Spring thaw, from late March into April, is often harder than January, because soft ground limits where trucks can go.
Call 548-918-0387 or send us your project details for a free site visit and a written quote. The more we can see up front, the faster and more accurate your price will be.
Open Monday to Saturday 6:00am to 9:00pm and Sunday 9:00am to 9:00pm.