You have a lot under contract, a client who wants a start date, and a framing crew you would like to keep busy. The pad is the thing standing between you and all of that, and the fastest way to lose time on it is to mobilize a dirt crew with half the information. This is what we need from you, what you get back, and how the job runs in between, written for builders rather than for the homeowner.
What we need before we mobilize
A boundary survey with the corners flagged. We do not work off a fence line, a neighbor's word, or a pin somebody thinks is close. If the corners are not flagged, the first thing we do is stop and find them, and that is not what you are paying an excavator to do.
The site plan, with the house, the driveway and the setbacks located on the lot, and the finished floor elevation your engineer and the county have settled on. That elevation drives the fill quantity and the fill quantity drives the number, so a pad quoted without it is a pad quoted twice.
Whatever paperwork the parcel needs, in hand. What that is depends on the county and the parcel, and you know that better than most homeowners do, but we will not open a lot on the promise that it is coming.
The density target from your engineer, so we are building to the right number from the first lift instead of finding out at the test.
A signed contract, a clear scope and one point of contact on your side. If your super and your owner both call us with different answers, the lot gets built to whoever called last.
Erosion control and the entrance go in first
Silt fence goes in before the machines do. That is how we run every job, along the low side of the lot and anywhere runoff can leave the property, and it gets walked and maintained the whole time we are on site. We have a state certified erosion control inspector on staff, so it gets set where it does something instead of where it looks good from the road. You will not have to remind us.
The construction entrance goes in at the same time. A pad of rock where the driveway will be, so your concrete trucks and lumber deliveries get in and out without rutting the lot or tracking mud onto the pavement. You have cleaned a road in front of a lot before. It goes in early so nobody has to do it again.
How the pad gets built
Clearing takes the trees off, grubbing takes out the stumps, roots and organic topsoil in the pad area, and nothing living or rotting stays under the footprint. Rough grading sets the elevations and gets the lot shedding water. Then the fill goes in lifts, each one rolled before the next one goes down, so the pad is tight from the bottom up and not just at the surface. We haul from our own pit at 3125 River Rd in Navarre, which keeps the trucking short on most of Santa Rosa and Okaloosa and puts the same material in every lift.
The material matters to your schedule. Sugar sand in Navarre, Gulf Breeze and along the coast drains and rolls tight fast, and a lot there comes back to work quickly after rain. Clay and hardpan up around Milton, Pace, Crestview and DeFuniak Springs holds water, wants a padfoot roller, and sits longer after a storm. If you are building in both, plan for them to run differently. The full run of what we handle is on our site prep page if you want to hand it to a client.
How we communicate
Zach is our field superintendent and he runs the crews. He is the one on your lot when the machines are moving and the one you hear from, and he sends photos rather than descriptions. You get told when we mobilize, when the pad is at grade, when the lab is scheduled, and when rain pulls us off. We do not promise dates the weather has not agreed to, and we would rather tell you a lot is too wet to roll than roll it and hand you a pad that tests short.
Changes go through one person on each side. If the finished floor moves, the footprint grows, or the client decides the driveway goes on the other side of the oak, we need to hear it before the lifts go down, not after. Fill that is already rolled in place is the most expensive fill to move.
What you get at handoff
A pad at the elevation the plans call for, crowned so it sheds water, with swales carrying runoff around the house site rather than through it. The density report from an independent soils lab, tested in place against your engineer's target, in your file so nobody argues about the pad after the slab is down. If a lift tests short, we rework it and retest before you hear about it as a problem. Silt fence standing and maintained, not laid over in the ditch. A stabilized entrance your trades can use. Bare ground seeded, sodded or matted so it does not wash out between our last day and your first one. And a clean lot, because the framing crew is not going to thank us for a stump pile in the corner.
Keep the survey, the paperwork and the density report together, because your engineer and your client's lender will both want to see them.
NOBL Sitework is a licensed general contractor (CGC1537340) doing site preparation for builders across Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Escambia, and Bay counties. If you have a lot that needs a pad, call us at 850-238-3307 and we will walk it with you, or with your super, and get the checklist started.
