Excavation Contractor in Guntersville, AL

House Pads and Driveways on Guntersville's Slopes

Guntersville counted 8,553 people in the 2020 census, up from 8,197 in 2010. Marshall County counted 97,612 that year, and the Census Bureau's 2025 estimate is 103,537. Each new house on a sloped lot needs a level pad before anything else.

On a hillside lot here, the house pad starts with a cut into the high side. That dirt builds up the low side in compacted lifts, with fill hauled in when more is needed. The finished pad is graded so water sheds away from it. That matters here: Guntersville averages about 57 inches of rain a year, per NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals.

December is the wettest month on average, and October is the driest. A drive that climbs a grade needs a firm base and a crown, with ditches to carry the water off. Our gravel driveway work cuts the base and shapes the crown, then tops it with gravel, crusher run or chert. We can also set a long drive on one continuous grade up a hill.

Rock Removal in Marshall County's Hills and Valleys

Lake Guntersville lies in a southern extension of the Sequatchie Valley. The county around it takes in sandstone plateaus, rough mountain slopes and limestone valleys, and it sits atop cave systems. In Lake Guntersville State Park, the longer trails have extreme elevation changes and lead to rocky ridges.

Rock can turn up in a pad cut or a driveway cut around Guntersville. A trackhoe, or excavator, with a ripper breaks it loose and pulls it out. Boulders are moved aside or hauled off as part of our rock removal work. Solid ledge that a ripper will not break needs other methods, and we say so at the estimate.

Land Clearing and Forestry Mulching Near Lake Guntersville

Land clearing is part of the lake's own history. Building Guntersville Dam and its lake required buying 110,145 acres of land. Of that, 24,426 acres were forest that had to be cleared. The area was flooded in January 1939.

Today the job is a wooded lot cleared for a house, or brush opened up for a lake view. Our land clearing uses the dozer and the trackhoe to take out trees, brush, stumps and roots. The debris is hauled off, buried on site or burned, whichever suits the lot and your plans. If you burn, a fire of a quarter acre or more needs an Alabama Forestry Commission burn permit.

On a steep lot that should stay covered, forestry mulching is the other way to clear. A skid steer with a mulching head grinds brush and small trees where they stand. The mulch stays on the ground as cover. For a pad or a drive, our stump removal pulls each stump out with the trackhoe, root ball and all.

Lake Lots, Farm Ponds and Demolition Around Guntersville

The Tennessee Valley Authority maintains and manages Lake Guntersville, Alabama's largest lake. Section 26a of the TVA Act requires TVA's approval before fills and other obstructions that affect navigation, flood control or public lands go in along the Tennessee River. The rules also cover certain work on TVA-owned land along the lake and on land under TVA flowage easements. So check with TVA before any fill, digging or shoreline work near the water.

Farming was the main work in Marshall County until the middle of the 1900s. In the 1930s, farms here branched into livestock and other food crops. Back from the lake, our pond construction work digs new farm ponds and shapes the banks. We also clean out ponds that have silted in, and the spoil is spread or hauled off.

Old houses, barns, sheds and mobile homes come down with our demolition work, and our trucks haul the debris off. On April 27, 2011, tornadoes killed five people in the Marshall County community of Ruth. When a storm brings trees down on a property, the dozer and trackhoe clear them and pull the stumps. Our dump truck hauling takes debris out and brings fill dirt, topsoil, gravel and crusher run in by the load.