Grading and Site Prep
We grade lots and prep sites around Burleson and the Fort Worth area. Our dozers and loaders shape the ground so water runs away from the slab.
Building pads are part of the dirt work we do around Burleson and the Fort Worth area. A house pad, a shop pad, a barn pad or a manufactured home pad all start the same way. We stake the footprint from the plan, then move dirt until the pad sits at the right elevation. Some pads come out of the dirt already on the lot, and some need fill hauled in.
Texas Best Demolition runs demolition and dirt work out of Burleson, TX, with about 20 people on staff. The company launched in late 2024, and decades of demolition and dirt work sit behind it. Right now 17 to 18 house demolitions run at once, plus commercial work and a very large ranch pond. Estimates are free, so show us the plan and we will price the pad at the property.
Tell us about your project and we will get right back to you.
Most of our pad work is a house pad for a home built on a slab. Shop and barn pads come next, under metal buildings and barndominiums. Mobile home and manufactured home pads come up often out on the county acreage. RV pads and small commercial pads come through as well. When an old trailer has to come off first, pulling the trailer and cleaning the pad is our work too.
A pad gets built one of two ways, and the lot decides which. On a lot with dirt to spare, we cut the high spots and fill the low ones. When the site runs short, fill dirt and select fill ride in on our own trailers. Either way the finished elevation comes off the plan. The ground around the pad gets shaped at the same time, so water leaves the building.
The footprint gets staked from the plan first, so everybody works off the same lines. Topsoil and roots come off next, because that layer is too soft to build on. On a lot grown up in brush, clearing the trees and stumps out happens before the pad work starts. Then the high spots get cut and the low spots get filled until the shape matches the plan.
Fill goes down in layers called lifts, and each lift gets packed before the next one lands. TxDOT Item 132 holds a layer to 16 inches loose or 12 inches compacted under density control. A padfoot roller or a dozer track does the packing, and clay gets watered first so it packs. The pad runs past the slab edge, and the finish grade is held to the plan. When the plan calls for density testing, the builder's lab runs it.
Common fill dirt handles volume, and select fill is what a plan calls for under a pad. TxDOT Item 132 holds Type A fill to a liquid limit of 45 and a plasticity index of 15. Low plasticity matters here because Tarrant and Johnson County clay swells wet and shrinks dry. A pad built out of high plasticity clay keeps moving under the slab season after season. Our cut and fill work on the lot uses the dirt you already own where the plan allows it.
The yardage math is length times width times depth in feet, divided by 27. A 60 by 40 pad with a foot of fill runs about 89 cubic yards by that rough math. Packing shrinks loose dirt, so the real order comes out higher than the paper number. Fill comes from a pit, or from spoil already sitting on the place. On acreage, a new stock tank or ranch pond dig can make most of the dirt a pad needs.
Inside the city, a building pad on a Fort Worth lot follows the city's grading rules. A grading permit is required for land disturbing activity impacting one acre or more. The city also requires an approved fill permit before fill material goes down, under Ordinance 15789, and fill used for landscaping on improved property is exempt. Registering a fill site costs $150, and fill within 50 feet of existing trees brings urban forestry in. Fill on a pad site cannot rise more than three feet above the highest elevation around the adjacent lots.
The design belongs to the builder and the engineer, and we build what they draw. Fort Worth amends the residential code so every foundation and footing is designed and sealed by a Texas registered engineer. Under a slab that code limits earth fill to 8 inches unless the design approves more. Inside Burleson a notification of grading goes to the city, and grading has to follow city ordinance B652. Out in unincorporated Johnson County the county handles development and floodplain items instead.
Free, no-obligation estimates across Burleson, Fort Worth & the southwest Metroplex.
(817) 564-4360From the first look at the job to the final walk-through, here is exactly how it goes.
Call (817) 564-4360 or send the form. Tell us the address, what has to come down or what dirt has to move, and your timeline. We set a time to come look.
We price the job standing on the property, not over the phone. The number covers the whole job, including haul-off, and we tell you what has to happen before work can start.
Utility disconnects get ordered, the demolition permit gets handled, and any required survey gets lined up. The start date builds around those dates, and we keep you posted.
The machines do the work, the debris leaves in our own dumpsters, and the ground gets graded before we pull off. What you keep is a clean, usable lot.
Common questions about building pads across Burleson, Fort Worth & the southwest Metroplex. Don't see yours? Give us a call and ask.
We grade lots and prep sites around Burleson and the Fort Worth area. Our dozers and loaders shape the ground so water runs away from the slab.
We deliver fill dirt across Burleson and Fort Worth, spread and compact it with our machines, and haul dirt off your site.
We handle dirt work across Burleson and the Fort Worth area. Cut and fill, trenching, foundation digs, and hauling with our own trucks and trailers.
A demolition company was built and sold here before this one. The company is new; the experience running it is not. About 20 people keep 17-18 house demos moving at once.
A Bobcat E88 fits through a backyard gate. A Kobelco 350 brings down a commercial building. Dozers, wheel loaders and skid steers fill the gaps, so the machine matches the lot.
Three roll-off trucks and about 75 dumpsters belong to the company. Debris leaves on our schedule, and the quote covers the finished state: teardown, loading, hauling, cleanup.
Burleson is home. Fort Worth, Arlington, Crowley, Mansfield and Cleburne are short drives on known ground. The clay moves around here, and the dirt work is planned for it.
A house or building that needs to come down, a slab or pool that needs to come out, dirt that needs to move? Call or send the form and we will look at the job with you and price the whole thing, teardown through cleanup. The estimate is free.
Tell us about your project and we will get right back to you.
