A house comes down in an order, and most of it is not the part with the excavator. What happens before, during and after, and what the lot looks like when we leave.

Every tree that comes down has to go somewhere. Hauling, grinding on site and burning, what each one means for your lot and your bill.

Bids look alike on paper. These seven questions tell you which crew you are actually hiring, and what a straight answer sounds like on each one.

A pad is only as good as how it went in. Lifts, moisture, the roller and the density test, explained the way we would standing on your lot.

Most stalled sitework jobs stall for the same six reasons, and nearly all of them are decided before a machine shows up. Each one, and what we do about it.

A driveway that lasts is mostly what is under it and where the water goes. The cut, the base, the crown and the approach at the road, the way we build them on sand and on clay.

From Destin to Baker the answer changes with the parcel and with whether the lot sits inside a city. What actually comes up on the Okaloosa County lots we clear, and who to ask.

Both are holes that catch stormwater. One holds it and lets it soak in, the other holds it and lets it out slowly. Which one your site gets is the engineer's call. How each gets built.

Fill dirt is not all the same and a load is not a fixed amount. The questions worth asking any supplier before the first truck backs onto your lot, answered from our own pit on River Rd.

The order matters on a wooded lot. Mark what stays, fence off the keeper oaks, silt fence, clear, grub the pad, grind or haul, rough grade. Each step the way we run it.

Snapped pines, tipped root balls and ground too wet to hold a machine. How a storm damaged lot gets back to buildable, and why the chainsaw crew and the dirt crew are two different calls.

The day the brush comes off your lot is the day the sand starts looking for a way out. Where the silt fence goes, what the rock is for, and how we keep it working through the job.

Your acreage has gotten away from you. A bush hog handles grass and light scrub, a forestry mulcher eats woody growth and small trees, and neither one builds a pad. Which one you need.

Somebody told you to order fill, somebody else said topsoil, and the pit asked if you wanted sand. Which one goes where on a lot around here, and what happens when you get it backwards.

In Walton County the answer depends on your parcel, what you are building, and which side of the bay you are on. Here is what actually comes up on the lots we clear.

The storm is gone and your yard, driveway or private road is buried in what used to be trees, fence and roofing. What we haul, where it goes, and what to have ready for your adjuster.

You want the trees gone. What you actually want is a lot you can build on, and clearing by itself does not get you there. Why we treat clearing and grading as one job.

Your lot is cleared, the pad is half built, and there is a storm in the Gulf. Here is what we do on our own jobs before it gets here, and why.

Closing on a lot feels like the finish line, but it is the starting line. Five things to do first, in order, before anyone prices your build.

Your builder wants a pad, not a raw lot. The full order of site preparation steps around here, what you need ready at each one, and where jobs stall.