Site work estimating is the part of a job that varies most between two houses of the same plan, because the lot is never the same: one is flat and cleared with services at the curb, the other slopes, carries trees, and needs a well and a hundred feet of trench. An estimate that carries site work as a share of the house price is guessing at exactly the part that cannot be guessed. This page is site work as lines, each with the quantity it is measured in and where the quantity comes from, worked on the lot under the $449,075 build used across this site. The construction cost estimator on this site prints the lines at your own rates, and the estimating software page treats a visible site work line as the test of an honest estimate.
Clearing, grubbing and the trees: by the area and by the count
Clearing is priced by the area to be cleared, from the site plan, and grubbing, removing the stumps and roots, by the same area at a heavier rate where the growth is dense. Trees above a stated size are counted and priced each, with the haul or the chipping as its own line. The quantity comes from a walk of the lot with the plan, not from the plan alone, because the plan does not show the growth. On the worked lot the cleared area is the building footprint plus the drive plus a working margin, and the tree count is what the walk found. The residential code's foundation chapter, linked below, is where the grading and drainage rules that shape the next lines live.
Excavation, haul and fill: cubic yards, and where the dirt goes
Excavation is priced by the cubic yard dug, from the foundation plan's footprint and depth plus the over-dig the crew needs to work, and the spoil either stays on site as fill or leaves on a truck by the load. Fill and compaction where the grade is raised is a second cubic-yard line, and imported fill is priced delivered. A basement and a slab on grade are very different quantities on the same footprint, which is why the line has to be worked from the drawings rather than carried from the last job. The concrete work that follows is governed by the construction standard's concrete subpart, linked below; the site work line ends where the footing forms begin.
Utilities and the drive: by the linear foot
Water, sewer or septic, gas, electric and communications each run from the service point to the house, and each is a trench by the linear foot at its required depth plus the pipe or conduit, plus the utility's own connection fees, which the estimate carries as an allowance where the utility has not quoted. A well or a septic system, where there is no service, is a line of its own with its own contractor. The driveway is an area at a stated base depth and surface, and a long drive can cost more than the foundation. On the worked lot the trenches are measured on the site plan and the drive's area from the plan's dimensions, and each line carries the rate the contractor actually pays.
Grading, drainage and the line for what the drawings do not show
Final grading and the drainage the code requires, swales, the slope away from the foundation, a footing drain to daylight or a sump, are the last site work lines and the ones most often left out because they happen last. After them comes the line for what the drawings do not show: rock, groundwater, buried debris, a wet season, carried as site contingency separate from the house contingency, so the owner can see it and the contractor can draw it by a rule. The construction cost estimator on this site prints every site work line beside the house lines, and DrawScheduleWorks Pro keeps them against the job so the site work draw, usually the first, bills what was actually done.
Questions people ask about site work estimating
What is included in site work estimating?
Clearing and grubbing by area, trees by count, excavation and fill by cubic yard, haul by load, utility trenches by linear foot with connection fees as allowances, the driveway by area, grading and drainage, and a site contingency for what the drawings do not show.
Why not estimate site work as a share of the house?
Because the lot varies more than the house: a flat cleared lot with services at the curb and a sloped wooded lot needing a well are the same house and very different site work. A share guesses at the part that cannot be guessed.
How is excavation quantity worked out?
From the foundation plan's footprint and depth plus the over-dig the crew needs, in cubic yards. A basement and a slab on the same footprint are very different quantities, so the line is worked from the drawings, not carried from the last job.