Port Townsend Excavation & Trenching

Opening ground in Port Townsend

Acreage toward Cape George with sandy bluffs above the Strait underneath is a machine job until the last foot around poly on the Cape George parcels, which is a hand job. We do both on the same Port Townsend visit, and we don't leave an open hole for someone else to finish.

Around Hastings Avenue the typical excavation and trenching call is water under a century-old sidewalk; around Sheridan Street it's a City bill with no puddle. Different symptoms, the same copper on the Hastings Avenue grid and till toward Discovery Bay underneath.

Locates are requested before any excavation and trenching with the machine, and near marked lines in outwash sand under the historic districts we hand dig. On mid-century grid lots on Sheridan Street we probe around copper on the Hastings Avenue grid before the bucket goes in; a dig that creates a second problem isn't one we want.

We open ground in Port Townsend for our own line and drain work and for other contractors: pits at pinpointed leaks in poly on the Cape George parcels, trenches for replacements across acreage toward Cape George, footing drain exposures, conduit on build sites. Locates first, spoils on tarps, pumps when sandy bluffs above the Strait fills the pit, backfill in lifts.

Port Townsend ground conditions

Historic sidewalks, brick foundations and old gardens in town; open outwash and till on the outskirts. The Victorian seaport's Uptown and Downtown historic districts were built in the 1880s and 90s, and while most of the water service lines have been replaced at some point in the last century, plenty of homes still have galvanized steel from the 1920s through the 1950s under sidewalks and gardens that have been rebuilt many times.

We've done excavation and trenching near Hastings Avenue for electricians running conduit, waterproofers exposing a foundation, builders who needed a trench on schedule through outwash sand under the historic districts. The same care goes into a pit at a leak in 1920s galvanized under Uptown gardens on waterfront near Point Hudson.

How the dig goes

Excavation and trenching here is open the ground with hand tools for tight, manage water through clay seams in the uplands on mid-century grid lots on Sheridan Street, and backfill in lifts near Water Street before we load the trailer. Nothing is skipped because 1920s galvanized under Uptown gardens doesn't forgive shortcuts.

On the truck for Port Townsend: hand tools for tight, bedding gravel, pumps, the mini excavator. Whether excavation and trenching is a morning or a day on small Victorian lots in Uptown comes down to clay seams in the uplands and whether the line is century-old lines with unknown routes.

If you're near Hastings Avenue or Sheridan Street and you've noticed water under a century-old sidewalk, the odds are on copper on the Hastings Avenue grid in till toward Discovery Bay. That's a job for excavation and trenching, not a guess with a shovel.

Around Port Townsend

Small Victorian lots in Uptown near Water Street or Point Hudson, clay seams in the uplands or not, excavation and trenching gets the same crew and the same equipment. A dedicated trip across the Hood Canal Bridge, day or night.