Pool & Pond Excavation
in Mount Pleasant & Charleston

There's no price list here, on purpose: no two pieces of ground are the same. Josiah walks it and gives you a straight number. What it comes down to:

• Size and depth. How much ground comes out of the hole.
• Where the dirt goes. Trucking spoils away is often the biggest part of a pool dig.
• Access. How a machine gets to the backyard, and how tight the path is.
• Groundwater. Digging near the water table can mean pumping water out as you go.
• Clearing first. Trees or stumps sitting in the footprint.

It depends on the pool builder. Some bring their own excavator; others have the dig and the haul-off done separately. Either way, the dirt has to go somewhere, and the machine has to get to the backyard.

Clearing the way in, digging to the builder's layout and depths, and trucking the spoils off, then backfill and a final grade when the builder is ready.

Often it's low ground that already holds water. In the Lowcountry the water table sits close to the surface, which can help a pond hold water through a dry spell.

Digging and shaping the pond with gently sloped edges, using the spoils to build up the banks or hauling them off.

Yes. Send the layout and depths and we dig to them, haul the spoils, and come back for backfill and final grade when the shell is in and the builder is ready.

In much of the Lowcountry the water table sits only a few feet down. A dig that goes below it can take on water as it goes, which means pumping, and it is something the pool builder designs the shell around. Better found on the first visit than on dig day.

Not from the state's dam-safety program, which only reaches dams 25 feet or taller or ponds holding back 50 acre-feet or more (S.C. Code §49-11-120). A pond still needs the local clearing, grading and stormwater permits any other dig would, and a federal permit if it is dug in a wetland. SCDNR notes a pond sited entirely on upland needs no Army Corps permit.

Coastal ponds are usually dug down into the groundwater rather than held back by a dam, and Clemson Extension puts them at typically 4 to 6 feet deep. A pond meant for fish wants more: SCDNR suggests 5 to 10 feet at the deepest point.