Foundation and basement excavation in Canandaigua

Digging a foundation is the one part of a build where being off by a few inches costs real money. Too shallow and the footing sits above frost. Too deep and you're paying for extra concrete or engineered fill. Out of square and the foundation crew loses a day. We dig to the plan and we check it with a rotary laser before the forms go up.

We work directly with homeowners, with builders, and with foundation contractors who want a reliable dig on the schedule. On a typical new-home lot we strip and stockpile topsoil, excavate the basement or crawlspace to the engineered depth with the overdig the foundation crew needs, cut footing trenches, and leave a clean, level, drained hole. After the walls are poured and damp-proofed we come back for footing drains, stone, and backfill in compacted lifts.

Additions and garages follow the same logic on a smaller scale, with the added challenge of working next to an existing foundation without undermining it.

Digging foundations in Ontario County soil

Our glacial till is generally good to bear on — dense and stable once you're below the topsoil and the frost zone. The surprises come in two forms. The first is shallow shale bedrock, common in Bristol, South Bristol, and along the lake's east side, which turns a two-day dig into a four-day one with a hydraulic breaker. The second is soft, saturated clay in low-lying areas of Farmington, Manchester, and the flats north of Canandaigua, where the footing design may call for extra depth or a stone bearing layer.

We recommend a soils look before we quote a new-home basement — a test pit with the excavator, an hour of your time, and it removes most of the guesswork about rock and groundwater. If the water table is high, we'll talk about whether a full basement is worth it or whether a crawlspace or slab makes more sense on that lot.

Frost is the other constant. Footings in this part of New York have to be at least 42 inches below finished grade, and most engineers spec 48. We dig to the plan, but if the plan says 36 inches, we're going to ask about it.