Much of Dinosaur was laid out in the late 1940s, when the Rangely oil boom brought the town to life under the name Artesia. That means plenty of lots carry older fill, buried debris, or forgotten lines from earlier decades. A good excavation starts by figuring out what’s actually in the ground before the bucket goes in.
We take on general excavation in Dinosaur for new homes, additions, shops, garages, and outbuildings. We request Colorado 811 locates, set the dig to the elevations on your plans, keep spoils where they won’t get in the way, and leave the bottom firm and ready for footings. Since Dinosaur is a long way out on our route, we line up trips ahead of time and try to stack your dig with any related work in one visit.
We know older Dinosaur lots can hide buried fill and debris, and we plan every dig with that possibility in mind.
We bring an excavator sized for the footprint, plus a loader when spoils need moving, so the dig wraps up in one trip.
If your plans leave room to save money on hauling or depth, we'll point it out before any dirt moves.
Spoils get piled neatly for backfill, the street stays clear of mud, and we rake the work area before we leave.
General excavation covers the big digs that get a project out of the ground. In Dinosaur that usually means a foundation or crawlspace for a new home, a pad for a shop or garage, an addition on an older house, or a basement for a building going up on an empty lot. We also dig for retaining walls, footings for carports and decks, and the rough shaping a site needs before anything else can start.
The common thread is accuracy. Your builder or concrete crew is going to set forms on whatever we leave behind, so the depth, the corners, and the bottom all need to match the plans.
Dinosaur was platted as Artesia during the Rangely oil boom of the 1940s and incorporated in 1947, so a lot of the town has been built on, torn down, and built on again. When we open up an older lot, we keep an eye out for buried concrete, old fill, abandoned pipe, and debris that someone pushed into a low spot years ago. None of it is unusual, but it does change how a dig goes.
If we hit material that can’t stay under a footing, we stop and talk with you and your builder before moving on. Soft fill usually comes out and gets replaced with something that compacts, and junk gets set aside for hauling.
No two digs are priced the same. During the site visit, we look at the things that actually change the work:
Getting these on the table early keeps the quote honest and keeps surprises off dig day.
Because we’re running the machine, we place the Colorado 811 request ourselves. Colorado asks for at least two full business days of notice, not counting the day of the call, so we build that into the schedule. Public utilities mark their lines, but private lines to a shop, well, or yard light don’t get marked, so tell us about anything you know is buried.
Footing depths and setbacks come from your plans and the building office that reviews them. We dig to those numbers rather than guessing. If several services need to reach the new building, utility prep for water, sewer, and power runs can be planned during the same trip so we’re not opening fresh ground twice.
Dinosaur sits 33 miles east of our Vernal base, right where US-40 crosses into Colorado. That’s far enough out that we plan trips rather than drop by on short notice. We set a dig date with you and your builder ahead of time, then bring the right excavator, a loader if the job needs one, and everything required to finish the work in as few trips as possible.
It pays to bundle. If the lot also needs a pad leveled or the yard shaped to shed water, site grading around the new foundation can happen while the equipment is already on site.
Once your concrete contractor has poured the foundation walls and they’re cured and approved for backfill, we come back to close it up. Backfill goes in thin layers and gets compacted one lift at a time, which keeps the ground around the house from sinking and sending water toward the walls. We shape the final grade so it slopes away from the building.
Leftover dirt can be spread on site, used to build up low spots, or hauled off. When the house is ready for an approach, a properly built driveway base picks up right where the excavation leaves off. Call (801) 669-0512 to set up a site walk for your Dinosaur project.
We walk the lot with you and your builder, review the plans, and note access, soil, and any old structures nearby.
You get a written quote covering dig depth, footprint, spoils handling, and backfill, so there's no guessing on what's included.
After Colorado 811 marks are in, we dig to plan elevations and leave a firm, level bottom ready for footings.
Once backfill is compacted and graded away from the walls, we walk the site with you to confirm everything looks right.
