Foundation holes, garage pads, additions, utility trenches, final grade — the dirt work that turns a Franklin lot into a build site, done on schedule so your contractor isn’t waiting.
Dig anywhere in central Franklin and you’re digging through history. Mill-era lots carry old foundations, ash fill, brick rubble, and utility lines that don’t appear on any modern map — so every Franklin redevelopment job starts with Dig Safe 811 and, on anything substantial, our own test pits to learn what the ground actually holds before a price gets promised. It’s honest work with real upside: Franklin’s lots are affordable, and good site prep is what makes an old parcel buildable again. Down along the rivers, terraces of sandy soil dig easily but sit near floodplain lines that need checking early. Webster Lake is the other side of our Franklin book — a classic camp lake where seasonal places convert to year-round, bringing full-foundation digs and utility trenches, with the Shoreland Act’s 250-foot rules applying at the water just as they do on Winnipesaukee.
Buying a Franklin infill lot? Spend a few hundred dollars on test pits before you close, or make the purchase contingent on them. Mill-era fill can be fine to build on or can mean over-excavating and importing structural fill — and knowing which one you own changes what the lot is actually worth.
Every build starts and ends with dirt. We dig foundations and frost walls to spec (four-foot frost depth here isn’t a suggestion), cut and fill to bring a sloped lot to grade, trench for water, power, and septic lines, and come back at the end for the finish grade that sheds water away from the new foundation. On ledge-prone ground we dig test pits first — finding granite with a quote instead of a change order.
We coordinate directly with your builder, and we show up when the schedule says — because everyone downstream of the dirt is waiting on it.
Machine-and-operator excavation runs $110–$200/hour in the region; typical foundation digs land $3,000–$10,000 depending on size, soils, and ledge. Test pits and a site walk get you a flat number before we start.
Most Lakes Region foundation excavations run $3,000 to $10,000 — driven by size, soil, water table, and whether we hit ledge. Test pits before quoting mean the number you get is the number you pay.
It's common here. We dig test pits at the corners before quoting, so ledge shows up in the plan — hammering or blasting gets priced up front, not as a mid-job surprise. If ledge makes one corner of the lot expensive, sometimes shifting the footprint twenty feet saves five figures.
Prime season is May through November. Deep frost slows winter digging, and March–April mud season closes many posted town roads to loaded trucks. We schedule around both — and fall is the smart time to book a spring dig.
Free site walks, test pits before quotes, flat pricing, and a crew that knows Lakes Region ground.
Tell us where the property is and what you’re trying to do. We’ll walk the site, talk it through, and give you a straight, flat quote.
