Tracked excavator cutting into a bank of red clay

Ground made ready to build on.

Site prep, land clearing, driveways and gravel. Excavating and grading from North Wilkesboro, NC.

Before the house, the dirt has to be right.

Every build starts with a cut, a fill and a slope that sends water away from the foundation. Get that wrong and it shows up later as a wet crawlspace or a washed-out drive.

Mathis & Son Grading, Inc. does the ground work that comes first.

Site preparation and grading
Land clearing
Driveways
Gravel

From standing timber to a gravel drive

Most lots in the foothills arrive wooded and sloped. This is roughly the order the ground work runs in.

A cleared woodland lot with stumps left in the ground — Clearing. Trees come down first, then stumps and roots come out so nothing rots under fill.

Cut logs stacked at the edge of a clearing — Cut timber stacked at the tree line before the stumps are pulled.

Excavator working a wet cut of red dirt beside a block wall — Digging out. Wet clay is heavy and slick, so timing around rain matters.

Crawler dozer with its blade down on a muddy graded site — Grading. High spots get cut, low spots get filled, and the pad is shaped to shed water.

Overhead view of a bulldozer leaving track lines across graded dirt — From above, a graded pad is all track lines and even passes.

Backhoe loader dumping a bucket of gravel onto a pile — Stone goes down once the base is shaped and packed.

A gravel drive running straight through green woods — The drive. A crowned gravel surface with somewhere for the water to go.

Site prep and grading

A building pad needs to be level, compacted and pitched away from where the walls will sit.

On a sloped lot that usually means moving a lot of dirt from one end to the other.

Excavator dragging its bucket to level a dirt site — Leveling with the bucket.

Orange excavator on a bare site with trees behind

Dozer work

A crawler dozer is the tool for spreading fill, cutting a bench into a hillside and shaping long, even grades.

Excavator beside piles of dug dirt with trees behind

Land clearing

Opening up a wooded lot for a house, a barn or a pasture. Trees, brush and stumps come out so the ground underneath can be graded.

Excavator digging at the edge of an open field — Opening up the edge of a field.

Bulldozer among brush and churned ground on a rural lot

Driveways

A drive up a slope has to climb without turning into a creek bed. Grade, crown and ditching decide whether it lasts.

Gravel

Stone for new drives, worn drives and parking areas. Washed-out gravel is often a drainage problem first.

Dump truck crossing a dusty site with woods behind — Hauling in across a dry site.

Wheel loader beside a large stockpile of dirt

Fog lying in the valleys below Blue Ridge mountains

Wooded ridges folding toward the horizon

Foothills in autumn color seen from above

Hillside lots rarely sit flat

Most of the grading work on a foothills lot is deciding where the water goes. Rain that runs off a ridge has to be turned before it reaches a foundation or a drive.

What helps when you call

The lot address or road, and how to get onto it.
What is on it now: woods, pasture, an old drive.
Where the house, building or drive is meant to go.
A plat or site plan, if you have one.

Tire tracks pressed into smooth red clay — Red clay holds every track. It also holds water.

Call about your lot

(336) 984-3261

Fax: (336) 984-4361
Office: 873 Cove Creek Drive
North Wilkesboro, NC 28659