Rangely sits at 5,276 feet in the far northwest corner of Colorado, with the White River running along town and the oil field shaping a lot of what gets built here. That means a steady mix of homes, garages, steel shops, and yards that have to stand up to heavy equipment. Every one of them starts with a hole in the right spot at the right depth.
Our general excavation work in Rangely covers foundations, basements, crawl spaces, additions, retaining wall cuts, and building pads. We request Colorado 811 locates before we dig, strip and save the topsoil, dig to the elevation on your plans, and keep the walls clean so forms go in without trimming. Good dirt stays on site for backfill. Rock, clay chunks, and junk get hauled off.
We know how high desert ground behaves around Rangely, from loose sandy spots to tight clay that holds water after a storm.
Our excavators, loaders, and compaction gear handle basements and shop pads without bogging down when the ground gets tough.
If your building spot sits too low or the plan fights the slope, we'll say so before anything gets dug.
Spoils stay sorted and stacked away from the hole, and we leave the site ready for your concrete crew to start.
Most of our Rangely excavation work falls into a handful of groups. Homeowners building a new house or adding a garage. Families finally putting in that addition or basement they talked about for years. Business owners who need a steel shop, a wash bay, or a pad for trailers and pipe racks. Each of those projects needs the same thing from us: a hole or a pad that matches the plans, sits at the right height, and doesn’t leave the concrete crew cleaning up after us.
If the building spot still has brush, old fencing, or a pile of leftover material on it, lot clearing should come first. Roots and trash mixed into your spoil pile make poor backfill, and sorting them out mid dig costs time.
Colorado law puts the locate call on whoever is digging, and that’s us. We contact Colorado 811 at least two full business days before the first bucket goes in, not counting the day of the call. The utility companies come out and mark their lines with paint or flags, and we dig around those marks with care.
Lines you own yourself are another matter. A water line you ran to a barn, a buried power feed to a shop light, or an old sprinkler main won’t show up on a locate. Tell us about anything like that during the site visit so we can mark it ourselves and keep the machine clear.
We don’t post a rate sheet because no two lots are the same. When we walk your property, these are the things that move the scope:
Rangely winters are cold. January lows sit around 2 degrees, and the ground goes through plenty of freeze and thaw swings between storms. That’s why footing depth matters so much. Footings have to sit deep enough that frost can’t lift them, and that depth follows local building requirements, not a number we pull from memory.
Your plans and the Rio Blanco County building department set the final depth for footings and basements. We dig to what’s on the approved plans and shoot grades as we go, so the bottom of the hole lands where the inspector expects it.
The Rangely Oil Field has kept this town working for generations, and that brings a lot of shop buildings, equipment yards, and storage pads. Those surfaces take loaded haulers, forklifts, and heavy iron, so what’s underneath has to be firm. We strip out soft or organic material, bring the pad up in compacted layers, and set it a little higher than the ground around it so water runs off instead of sitting under the slab.
If the new shop needs water, sewer, or power, utility prep can happen while the equipment is already on site. Your plumber and electrician install their lines, and we handle the digging and backfill around them.
When the walls have cured and your builder gives the go ahead, our crew returns for backfill. Dirt goes in thin lifts with compaction on each one, and big rocks stay away from the walls. Skip that and the ground around the house sinks after the first winter, leaving a low spot that collects water right where you don’t want it.
After backfill, finish grading pitches the ground away from the building so snowmelt and summer storms move off instead of soaking in along the foundation. When you have plans in hand, call (801) 669-0512 and we’ll set up a time to walk the lot.
We walk your Rangely lot, look at soil, slope, and truck access, and go over your plans and building corners.
You get a written quote covering dig depth, haul off, backfill, and how we'd handle rock if we hit it.
After the 811 marks are in, we stake the footprint, strip topsoil, and dig to plan elevation with square walls.
We walk the finished hole or backfilled site with you and confirm it's ready for the next crew to take over.
