Dirt Work, Land Clearing and Road Building Questions

Dirt work is the heavy equipment work that turns raw land into a site ready to build. For us that means land clearing, site preparation for building pads, land grading, road building, utility trenching and site drainage. The work ends at a graded, compacted surface that is ready for concrete, a building or a road surface. Oilfield locations and data center campuses get the same work at their own scale.

The price comes from the ground and the volume. Acreage and brush density drive a clearing job, and the cut and fill volume drives a pad or a road. Rock near the surface, wet clay, haul distance for base or caliche and the equipment move all change the number. We look at the job and put the quote in writing, with the scope spelled out.

Fort Worth sits at the center of our service area, which runs about 300 miles out. Southlake, Aledo, Weatherford, Granbury, Glen Rose, Stephenville, Mineral Wells and Dallas are all inside it. It reaches Midland and Odessa in the Permian Basin and Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country. See the towns we serve for the full list, or call or text (214) 557-5106.

The City of Fort Worth requires a grading permit for land disturbance of one acre or more. A smaller tract inside a common plan of development that reaches an acre needs one too. The state's construction stormwater permit, run by TCEQ, starts at the same one-acre line. Other cities set their own rules, and the permit office in each one answers for a given tract.

Texas law requires whoever digs to notify Texas 811 before machine work 16 inches or deeper. The notice goes in at least 48 hours ahead, weekends and legal holidays aside, and up to 14 days ahead. A private line that serves only the property owner sits outside that system, so the landowner points it out. Grubbing roots, cutting a pad and trenching all reach that depth, so a big dirt job starts with a ticket.

Yes. Pad sites and lease roads for oil and gas operators are a core part of our West Texas work. Midland, Odessa and the rest of the Permian Basin sit inside our service area. We clear the location, build the caliche pad and the lease road, and grade the drainage around it.

The city's tree guide describes much of Fort Worth as shallow clay over dense plates of limestone. Deeper clay sits to the south, and west of town the clay thins to rock. In dry weather one common North Texas clay cracks 1 to 3 inches wide and more than 20 inches deep. That clay swells wet and shrinks dry, so moisture and compaction in lifts get close attention on a pad.

Fort Worth averages about 35 inches of rain a year, with October, May and June the wettest months. Wet clay has to dry back before it will compact to spec. Heavy dirt work can pause a few days after a hard rain, and we tell you where the schedule stands.

Yes, the company builds too. Bankston's Builders does full commercial tenant finish outs of retail and commercial spaces. Roofing, HVAC, polished concrete floors, drywall, cabinets, doors and insulation run as one managed job. We also build custom homes for select clients, from the pad through the finished house.