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When the grading around your home is off, everything downstream suffers. Water finds your foundation. Your basement takes on moisture every time it rains. The yard stays soft and unusable for days after a storm. These aren’t random bad luck they’re predictable outcomes of original grading that was done 75 or 80 years ago and hasn’t been corrected since.
Collingdale’s housing stock is dense and aging. The majority of homes in the 19023 ZIP code were built in the 1940s, and nearly 39% were built before 1939. That means most properties are working with drainage systems that predate modern standards, on compact lots where every inch of slope matters. Clay-heavy Delaware County soil doesn’t help it holds water instead of moving it, which makes improper grading even more damaging over time.
What changes after the work is done is straightforward: water moves away from your foundation instead of toward it. Your yard drains after rain instead of sitting wet. If a retaining wall is part of the project, the slope that was eroding or shifting gets stabilized. And if you want a patio or usable outdoor space on the back end of the project, the site is properly prepared to support it not just leveled and left.
We’re based in Aston, PA Delaware County, same as Collingdale. Renato Spennato has been doing this work in communities across the county for over a decade, and his name shows up in the reviews because he’s the one on the job. Not a dispatcher. Not a crew you’ve never met. The person whose name is on the business.
Out of more than 125,000 licensed Pennsylvania contractors, we hold a BuildZoom score of 102 placing our business in the top 11% statewide. That’s a third-party ranking you can verify yourself, not a badge someone paid for.
What makes the difference in a borough like Collingdale where lots are tight, homes are old, and the soil doesn’t forgive bad grading is experience with exactly this kind of work. Retaining walls, yard leveling, drainage correction, site preparation for hardscape projects. We’ve done all of it in Delaware County, and the reviews from those jobs are specific enough to tell you exactly what to expect.
Before any digging starts, there’s a permit step that a lot of homeowners don’t know about. Collingdale Borough Code Chapter 268 requires a permit from the Building Inspector before any grade change or excavation and that permit has to be accompanied by a plan approved by the Borough Engineer showing that the work won’t cause drainage problems for adjacent properties. It’s a real requirement, and skipping it puts you in violation of borough code. We know this process, and we’re prepared to work within it.
Once permitting is in order, the next step is utility marking. Pennsylvania’s 811 call-before-you-dig requirement is legally mandatory, and in Collingdale where utility lines have been in the ground since the 1930s and 1940s this step isn’t optional or routine. Old infrastructure doesn’t always sit where the maps say it does. Every job gets marked before a machine touches the ground.
From there, the work itself follows the plan: excavation, regrading, drainage correction, retaining wall installation if needed, and site preparation for whatever comes next. On compact Collingdale lots, that means careful, deliberate work not heavy equipment swinging wide on an open field. When the job is done, the site is clean, properly graded, and ready for the next phase, whether that’s a patio, landscaping, or simply a yard that finally drains the way it should.
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Most excavation contractors in the Collingdale area dig and move on. We handle the full scope excavation, grading, drainage correction, retaining wall installation, and site preparation for patios and outdoor living spaces all with the same crew, from start to finish. No handoffs between contractors. No gaps in communication. No one pointing fingers at someone else’s work when something doesn’t line up.
That matters more on a Collingdale lot than it might on a half-acre property in the outer suburbs. When your outdoor space is compact, every phase of the project affects the next one. The grading has to account for the retaining wall. The retaining wall has to account for the patio. A crew that only does one of those things and leaves can make the next phase harder or more expensive than it needed to be.
Collingdale’s Chapter 506 Steep Slopes ordinance adds another layer for properties with sloped terrain it’s a separate borough requirement designed specifically to prevent erosion and runoff from improperly handled grade changes. If your property has any meaningful slope, that ordinance applies to your project, and the work needs to be designed with it in mind from the beginning. Our familiarity with Delaware County’s regulatory environment means your project is built to comply, not corrected after the fact.
Yes and this catches a lot of homeowners off guard. Collingdale Borough Code Chapter 268 requires a permit from the Building Inspector before any grade change or excavation takes place on a property within the borough. That’s not just for major commercial projects it applies to residential yard regrading too.
What makes it more involved than a simple permit pull is the plan requirement. The permit application has to be accompanied by a plan approved by the Borough Engineer that demonstrates the proposed work won’t cause drainage problems for adjacent property owners. On a dense borough lot where your neighbor’s yard is a few feet away, that’s a legitimate concern and it’s one the borough takes seriously enough to put in writing.
We handle Delaware County residential work regularly and understand what Collingdale’s permitting process requires before the first machine arrives.
Nationally, residential excavation averages around $3,975, with a typical range between $1,658 and $6,709 depending on scope. In the Philadelphia metro and Delaware County area, labor rates generally run 15 to 25 percent higher than rural Pennsylvania, so it’s reasonable to budget toward the middle or upper end of that range for most residential projects.
What actually drives the cost on a Collingdale property is the scope of the problem. A straightforward regrading job to correct slope and improve drainage is on the lower end. If there’s a retaining wall involved, significant soil removal, or site preparation for a hardscape project, the number goes up accordingly. Soil conditions matter too Delaware County’s clay-heavy soil can complicate excavation and add to the work involved in getting proper drainage established.
The honest answer is that you need a site visit and a real quote to know what your specific project will cost. What you want to avoid is hiring based on the lowest number before anyone has actually looked at your yard, because a grading job done wrong in Collingdale’s clay soil can cost more to fix than the original project.
In most cases, it comes down to grading specifically, the slope of the ground around your home and how well it directs water away from the foundation. When the grade is flat, settled toward the house, or incorrectly pitched, water has nowhere to go except toward your foundation wall. Over time, that leads to basement moisture, efflorescence, and eventually water intrusion during heavy rain.
This is an especially common problem in Collingdale because most homes were built in the 1940s or earlier, and the original grading has had decades to settle and shift. Delaware County’s clay-heavy soil makes it worse clay doesn’t drain well, so water sits on the surface longer and puts more sustained pressure against foundation walls.
The fix is regrading the yard to establish the correct slope away from the house, combined with any drainage corrections needed to move water off the property efficiently. In some cases, a retaining wall or French drain is part of the solution. The goal is to address the source of the water movement, not just manage the symptoms after the fact.
The clearest signs that a retaining wall has reached the end of its useful life are leaning or bowing outward, cracking along the face or cap, sections that have shifted or separated, and soil or water pushing through the wall itself. A wall that’s showing one or two of those signs may be repairable depending on the underlying cause. A wall showing several of them especially combined with soil movement behind it typically needs to be replaced rather than patched.
Age matters here too. A lot of retaining walls in Collingdale and the surrounding Delaware County boroughs were installed decades ago, often with materials or techniques that don’t hold up the same way modern construction does. If the wall was already old when you bought the house, and it’s showing visible stress, the cost of repairing it repeatedly usually exceeds the cost of replacing it with a properly built wall that’s designed to last.
The only way to know for certain is to have someone look at it in person. The condition of the soil behind the wall, the drainage situation, and the original construction method all factor into whether repair makes sense or whether replacement is the better investment.
For a standard residential regrading project on a Collingdale lot correcting slope, improving drainage, and cleaning up the site most jobs take one to three days of active work once the crew is on-site. Larger projects that include retaining wall installation, significant soil removal, or site preparation for a patio or hardscape addition will take longer, typically ranging from a few days to a week or more depending on scope.
What extends the timeline more than the work itself is the front end: permitting, utility marking, and scheduling. Collingdale’s Chapter 268 permit requirement means there’s a borough approval step before work can begin, and that takes time to process. Pennsylvania’s 811 utility marking requirement adds a few days on the front end as well. Spring is the busiest season for this kind of work in Delaware County, so scheduling windows fill up faster between March and June than they do in late summer or fall.
If you’re dealing with a drainage problem that got worse over the winter, the best time to call is before spring hits and schedules fill. Fall is also a solid window ground conditions are still workable, demand is lower, and the work has time to settle before spring rain season.
Yes. We’re based in Aston, PA, which is in Delaware County the same county as Collingdale. We serve communities throughout Delaware County, including Collingdale and the surrounding boroughs like Sharon Hill, Glenolden, Clifton Heights, and Darby.
Collingdale’s location roughly 0.9 square miles, densely built, with a housing stock that’s mostly 75 to 90 years old is exactly the kind of environment we work in regularly. Compact lots, aging infrastructure, clay soil, and borough-specific permit requirements aren’t surprises on a Delaware County job. They’re the standard working conditions, and we’re set up for them.
If you’re on MacDade Boulevard, off Clifton Avenue, or anywhere else in the borough and you’re dealing with a drainage problem, a failing retaining wall, or a yard that needs proper grading before you can do anything else with it, we serve your area and have the experience in Delaware County residential work to back it up.
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