Assess & quote
Site visit, plan review and Dial Before You Dig. One clear quote covering dig, cartage and cleanup.
Woollahra is a grand Victorian-terrace suburb on the sandstone ridge, basement, underpinning and pool work under heritage controls. The regular jobs here are basement digs, underpinning and pool digs. Services located first, sites left level and clean.
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From a knock-down rebuild to a new estate pad, each service has its own page with the detail.
Woollahra sits about 5 kilometres east of the city. It's anchored by Queen Street antiques, Centennial Park and Cooper Park. It's ringed by Paddington, Edgecliff, Bellevue Hill, Double Bay, Bondi Junction and Queens Park. What's changing: basement digs and underpinning under terraces, and rear pools and lift pits cut into rock.
Most of Woollahra is victorian terraces and semis in tight heritage conservation streets, over by Queen Street antiques. Near Queen Street antiques, the terraces are dug through the house or over the back fence. Day to day around Paddington that's basement digs, underpinning and pool digs.
Woollahra ground runs to Hawkesbury sandstone under shallow shale on the ridge, over by Queen Street antiques. The rock under Centennial Park is close, so Woollahra footings and pits are broken out and the spoil leaves the block as rock. Around Edgecliff, the clay is reactive, so fill goes in in compacted layers.
Woollahra is in Woollahra Municipal Council, and the Queen Street antiques blocks carry heritage and tree protection controls, dug to the approved plans. Machines come in to Woollahra off Moncur Street or Oxford Street, and it's tight-access through the old grid.
Every job follows the same sequence, whether it's a single trench or a full site cut.
A trench can be a day, a basement can be weeks. Dates come with the quote, not after.
Woollahra and the streets around it, from the older estates to the new blocks.
From the older streets to the newer blocks, Woollahra and the suburbs around it. If you're anywhere in the Woollahra area, we can get to you.
See the whole Eastern Suburbs →It depends on the volume of material, the ground (hawkesbury sandstone under shallow shale on the ridge), access for the machine and how far spoil has to be carted. Every job gets a written quote after a site look, with the dig, cartage and cleanup spelled out, so you know what’s included before anything starts.
Usually, if the excavation is part of a build. Cut and fill beyond set limits, work near boundaries and anything on a lot with a flood, bushfire or heritage overlay needs approval as part of the DA or CDC. We work to the approved plans; check with your certifier before the dig is booked.
A trench, pool dig or single pad is a day or two; a knock-down site cut or a basement runs longer and depends on volume, ground and weather. Dates come with the quote, not after.
Yes. Hawkesbury sandstone under shallow shale on the ridge. On the headlands and the harbour slopes sandstone is at or near the surface, so pools, basements and garage cuts are rock jobs from the start: sawn at the boundaries, broken in the middle, carted as rock. It’s in the quote from the site look.
Yes, it’s a common harbour-slope job. The rock is sawn at the house footing line and the boundaries and broken out in stages to the engineer’s underpinning and shoring sequence, so the house above and the neighbour’s house stay where they are.
Yes. Mini machines are craned over the house or walked through it, and spoil comes out the same way in bins or by conveyor. Slower than a side-gate job and priced for it, but it’s how most Eastern Suburbs backyards get dug.
Reactive clay. It swells in wet winters and shrinks in dry summers, and anything poured on loose or uncompacted fill moves with it. A pad cut and filled in compacted layers to the engineer’s spec is what stops the new slab doing the same thing.
Yes. The old house down, slab and footings out, the block stripped and the new pad cut and compacted, as one run if you want the demolition handled too.
Tell us about the job. We'll look at the site before quoting, so you know what's included before anything starts.
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