Bush Hogging
Rotary cutting for overgrown fields, pastures, vacant lots and fence lines across southeastern North Carolina.
View Details Home Our Work About Contact Call (910) 512-9578
We are a site prep company based in Burgaw, North Carolina. Our work turns raw lots into drained, buildable ground for new houses and commercial buildings. We prep lots for homeowners building a new house and for builders and developers. Commercial sites such as storage facilities are part of the work too. Since 2013 we have cleared and graded land with excavators, a tracked skid steer and a dump truck. The goal is a firm pad on a lot that drains.
Site prep runs in a set order. The lot gets cleared, and the stumps come out with the excavator. The topsoil is stripped, then the high ground is cut and the low ground filled. The pad goes up in packed layers, and the drainage goes in. Along the way, a stone construction entrance gives trucks a firm way onto the lot. At the end, the lot is handed to the builder at rough grade. For the full house order, read our guide to clearing land to build a house.
We do site prep in Wilmington, Leland, Hampstead and Rocky Point. Scheduling is usually within days. The estimate is free and comes from looking at the property. Call (910) 512-9578 and tell us what you plan to build and where water stands after a hard rain. If your builder already has a site plan, keep it handy when we come out. That plan shows where the house or building sits, and it shapes how the lot gets graded.
Tell us about your property and we'll get back to you fast.
Site prep starts with land clearing, when the trees, brush and stumps come off the building area. We pull each stump out of the ground with the excavator. Buried wood rots over time and leaves a soft spot under the house. Next the topsoil gets stripped off the pad area, since roots and organic matter make a poor base. NCDOT's road-building spec calls for fill soil that is sandy and free of stumps and roots. A house pad follows the same logic, so the stumps and topsoil come out before any fill goes down.
Then comes cut and fill. We cut the high ground down and fill the low ground until the lot sits at rough grade. The pad goes up in layers, and each layer gets packed before the next one goes on. For a benchmark, NCDOT's standard spec spreads road fill in roughly level layers. It packs each one to at least 95 percent of the density a lab test gets from the same soil. That is the state's road-building standard, and it shows why layers matter. The pad shaping itself is covered on our house pad grading page.
Builders in Wilmington, Leland and Hampstead need a lot that is ready on the day they start. That means the pad is up and water has somewhere to go. On flat coastal lots, standing water is the usual fight after a storm. We move it off with driveway culverts and drainage swales, plus ditches where the lot needs them. A stone construction entrance at the road keeps mud off the pavement once trucks start rolling in. Extra dirt from the cut gets loaded into our dump truck and hauled off.
Commercial site prep follows the same order on a bigger footprint. On storage facility sites, the ground between the buildings gets graded so the drive lanes shed water. Some commercial jobs also need a retention or stormwater pond, and that digging falls under our pond construction work. Silt fence runs along the low edges of the site to catch muddy runoff. Erosion matting holds bare slopes in place while the site takes shape. Both keep sediment on the site and out of the ditches and creeks nearby.
State law sets the first rule. Under G.S. 113A-57, land disturbance of more than one acre needs an erosion and sedimentation control plan. NCDEQ says that plan must go in at least 30 days before land disturbance begins. It must be approved before any work starts. NCDEQ's standard review fee is $119 per acre of disturbance or part of an acre, and it is not refundable. The property owner applies. Our guide to land clearing permits covers the rest of the list.
Pender County requires a Flood Development Permit for all building in the floodplain. Its floodplain page tells owners to check with the Permitting Department before they build on, alter or add fill soil. That matters on a low lot where the pad needs fill dirt hauled in by the load. Four of the five counties we work in, Pender, New Hanover, Onslow and Brunswick, are on NCDEQ's CAMA county list. Duplin is not. In those four, NCDEQ says a project inside an Area of Environmental Concern may need a CAMA permit.
From the first walk of the property to the last pass of the blade, here is exactly how it goes.
Call (910) 512-9578 or send the form. Describe the land, what is on it, and what you want it to become. Photos help.
We meet you on the property, look at the growth, the ground and the access, and talk through the right way to do the job.
The estimate is free and comes from seeing the land. You know the price and the plan before any machine shows up.
The machines show up when the ground is ready, the work gets finished, and the property is left clean and usable.
Common questions about site prep across Burgaw & Southeastern NC. Don't see yours? Give us a call — we're happy to help.
Rotary cutting for overgrown fields, pastures, vacant lots and fence lines across southeastern North Carolina.
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Excavation for building pads, trenches, culverts and drainage cuts. We dig it, load it out, and leave the ground at the grade your plan calls for.
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Houses, sheds, barns, garages and old slabs taken down and hauled away, with the ground left clean and level.
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Land grading, house pads, gravel driveways and drainage swales across Pender County. We cut and fill the ground so water runs off it and away from the house.
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We grind underbrush and small trees into mulch on site, so the wood stays as ground cover.
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We dig and shape ponds on residential and rural land across Pender, New Hanover, Onslow, Brunswick and Duplin counties. That covers farm ponds on private land and retention ponds on commercial sites.
View DetailsExcavators, a tracked skid steer and a dump truck, run by Coastal Brush Mowing. You explain the job once, the estimate comes from seeing the ground, and the company that quotes the work does the work.
Excavators, a tracked skid steer and a dump truck under one name. Clearing, dirt work, demolition and the haul-off get done as one job with one estimate.
Sandy soil, wet low spots, a high water table and brush that never quits. This is the only ground we have worked since 2013, and the work is planned for what it does.
We look at the property, talk through what it needs, and hand you a real number. The estimate costs nothing and the price comes from seeing the ground.
Real reviews from real clearing, dirt and demolition jobs on Google.
Great guy to work with. Demoed the trailer and made it all go away.
Absolutely love Steve and his excellent work ethic. We hired him to clear our acre lot in Holly Ridge, demo and haul off an old single wide trailer, bring in fill dirt and make the cleared land look fantastic. He went above and beyond what we expected. He was always on time, returned phone calls or text and he was fair with pricing.
Steve does a great job I’ve been using him for over a decade
Site prep cost in North Carolina: published data puts preparing land for a house at about $1,000 to $4,000, plus pad, driveway, culvert and permit costs.
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Do you need an NCDOT driveway permit? Yes, if your drive meets a state road, and NCDOT charges no fee to apply. Here are the pipe rules and how to apply.
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Clearing land to build a house in NC, step by step: clearing, stumps out, rough grade, a compacted building pad and driveway access for concrete trucks.
Read more →Land to clear, an old structure to take down, brush that's won too many summers, or a pond you've been thinking about for years? Call or send the form. We come look at the property with you and the estimate is free, from a company that has worked this ground since 2013.
Tell us about your property and we'll get back to you fast.