Excavation
Site cuts
Cutting a level, stable platform out of a block that does not have one, on sites where the fall, the rock or the access rules out a standard dig.
What a site cut has to achieve
A site cut turns a sloping block into a buildable platform. It sounds simple until the ground turns to rock, the access will not take a truck, or the cut has to stop short of a neighbour. On a steep block in Melbourne’s east that is the normal case rather than the exception, and it is the reason a cut that looked like two days on paper becomes two weeks.
The cut is set out to survey, not to a stake in the ground, because the level it produces is what every trade behind you builds off. Where the cut leaves a face that has to be held, we design and build the retaining wall as part of the same job, so the batter, the working space behind the wall and the subsoil drain are planned together rather than negotiated later.
Site cuts are one part of what we do. The rest of the earthmoving, including bulk excavation, rock breaking and spoil removal, sits on the excavation page.
What it solves
- A block you cannot build on yetThe cut creates the level, stable platform the following trades need before they can start.
- Ground that turns out to be rockHammer and augers are ours. Hard ground changes the method, not the program.
- A cut that has to stop at a boundaryThe face is held as the cut goes in, so the neighbour’s ground is never carrying an open batter.
- Nowhere to put the spoilOn constrained sites the access and the cartage are planned before the machine arrives, not discovered on day two.
Examples of the work
-
Major site cutSix hundred and fifty cubic metres out, alongside an occupied house, with truck access built as part of the job. -
Cutting into rockWhere the cut runs into rock the hammer goes on and the method changes, not the finished level. -
Cutting to a boundaryA face taken close to a neighbour, held as it is cut rather than left open overnight. -
Platform handed overA level, drained, trafficable pad the next trade can set out on the day they arrive.
- Registered builderCDB U 58737
- Set out to surveyLevels the next trade builds off
- Rock capabilityHammer and augers
- Faces held as cutWhere the cut needs a wall
Send the fall and what is going on the pad
The fall across the block and what the platform has to carry decide the cut, the batters, and whether the exposed face needs a wall to hold it.