Excavation contractor in Jacksonville, FL that answers the phone when the ground gives way
First Coast Excavation digs, clears and preps sites across Jacksonville and the surrounding counties. Emergency washouts and dig-outs get a crew the same day. Planned projects get a number from a cost guide we publish right on this site, which nobody else in this market will do.
Sunshine 811 locates before every dig. Insured, professional crews and tracked equipment on every site.
When the ground can’t wait for a scheduled crew
A collapsed culvert, a washout eating a driveway, a broken sewer lateral under standing water. Jacksonville storms make this kind of work, and most excavation companies here make you wait behind their scheduled projects. We hold machine time for exactly these calls and publish the call-out math, so you know what answering the emergency costs before you dial.
Weekday call-out runs $450 to mobilize plus the machine hourly rate. Nights and weekends run $650. That covers the crew rolling, and the digging is billed off the same public table as everything else.
Emergency excavation, in detailCommercial excavation priced like a bid, not a mystery
General contractors and owners’ reps on the First Coast mostly find excavation subs through directories and phone trees. We’d rather you find the scope sheet. Building pads, mass grading, retention areas and utility rough-in, quoted line by line so your bid package carries real numbers instead of allowances.
We work from your civil drawings, catch groundwater problems before they turn into change orders and compact fill in thin layers, with density testing to prove it, when the construction schedule depends on a pad that passes.
Commercial site prep, in detailA real range before anyone calls you
Three questions, priced straight off the published cost guide. The number you see is the number a phone call starts from.
Around Jacksonville the water table decides more than the soil does. A site that digs clean in May can hold water in September, so when the job runs matters almost as much as what the job is.
What our equipment does for First Coast properties
One team, one set of machines, a short list of jobs we do often enough to price with a straight face.
Land clearing
Brush, trees and grubbing for acreage from Middleburg to Yulee. Cleared, hauled or mulched in place, with the root mats actually out of the ground.
Details and pricingPond excavation
New ponds, retention areas and cleanouts of ponds that have silted in. Dug to hold water the way Florida ground actually holds water.
Details and pricingEmergency dig-outs
Washouts, collapses and buried utility failures. Same-day response with published call-out pricing.
Details and pricingSite prep and pads
Building pads, driveways and drainage rough-in for commercial and residential construction, compacted and grade-checked.
Details and pricingFlorida excavation is a water problem before it is a dirt problem
The soil here digs easy. Sandy, mostly rock-free, kind to a bucket. What complicates every project on this coast is water: a table that sits a few feet down across much of Duval County, wet-season storms that refill a hole overnight and low sites near the St. Johns and the Intracoastal where the tide has an opinion. A contractor who plans the dig without planning the water hands you a pumped-out swamp and an invoice for the pumping.
We look at every property with the water in mind first. Sometimes that means dewatering. Sometimes it means matting equipment across soft ground, digging from the dry side or telling you honestly that the job costs less in November than it does in September. The Timucuan preserve and the wetlands scattered through these counties also mean some parcels carry permit questions, and we tell you that at the walk-through, not after the machines show up.
How a project runs, from consultation to final grade
- Step 1
Walk the site
A consultation on the actual ground, not a satellite photo. We check access, water behavior and where the spoil can go.
- Step 2
Quote off the table
The number comes from the published cost guide with the site factors shown. You can check our math against our own website.
- Step 3
Locates, then digging
Sunshine 811 marks the utilities. The machine that fits your access does the work, and the schedule respects the weather window.
- Step 4
Grade check and walkoff
Grades verified, compaction confirmed where the job needs it and the site left clean enough that the next trade can start.
Why Jacksonville property owners choose a crew that publishes its prices
Response you can plan around
Calls get answered by a person, quotes come back within one business day of the site walk and emergencies get a crew the same day inside Duval County. If a timeline slips, you hear it from us before you notice it yourself.
A quote you can audit
Every number traces to a row on the public cost guide plus site factors we name out loud. Most excavation companies in this market quote from a black box. Checking our math takes you two minutes and no phone calls.
One team, start to finish
The people who walk your property run the equipment that does the work. No brokered subs, no stranger showing up in an unmarked truck, and the person you called is the person accountable for the final grade.
Who we are not for
- Bargain shoppers collecting five bids. Our prices are on the website. If a competitor beats them, take that deal and we mean it kindly.
- Projects that need a survey crew, not a machine. Boundary disputes and unpermitted wetland fills are jobs we decline on the phone, which saves everyone a bad month.
- Anyone who wants digging started tomorrow on a wet site. If the ground says wait, we say wait. Paying us to fight standing water is usually the wrong purchase.
Jobs that went sideways and what fixed them
- The pond that refilled itself. A cleanout dug at the wrong time of year kept refilling from the water table. The fix was scheduling, not horsepower: three dry weeks, then a long-reach machine working from the bank. The customer paid for one mobilization instead of two.
- The pad on buried debris. A building pad cut hit a former burn pit nobody disclosed. We stopped, priced the muck-out as its own line and let the owner decide before another bucket moved. The pad passed density testing afterward because the junk came out.
- The trench that found an unmarked line. Locates missed a private irrigation main, as locates sometimes do. Hand digging near the strike zone is in our method for exactly this reason. The line got a repair coupling, the trench got finished and no one got a flooded yard.
What customers ask before they book
Do you really publish your pricing?
Yes. The cost guide lists the ranges we quote from and the factors that move a job inside its range. No excavation company in this market does that, which is exactly why we do.
How fast can you get to an emergency?
Usually same day inside Duval County and often within hours. Call rather than using the form; the phone is the emergency channel.
Do you handle the 811 locates?
Always. Sunshine 811 tickets go in before any scheduled dig, and for emergencies we work the expedited process while the crew rolls.
Tell us about the site
Address first, then a few details. We call back with a plan and a number pulled from the same cost guide you can read yourself. Photos speed everything up.