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Most excavation jobs in Sharon Hill aren’t about moving a lot of earth. They’re about correcting what 80 years of settlement, shifting soil, and aging drainage infrastructure have quietly done to your property. Water pooling near your foundation. Grading that slopes the wrong direction. A retaining wall that’s been slowly losing the fight. These aren’t cosmetic issues they’re problems that get worse every time it rains, and in a borough where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is actively studying stormwater mitigation, your yard’s drainage situation matters more than ever.
When excavation and grading are done correctly, the difference is immediate and lasting. Water moves away from your foundation instead of toward it. Your yard holds its shape through heavy rain instead of turning into a low spot that never fully dries. If you’re adding a patio, a retaining wall, or an outdoor space, the site is prepared properly so the finished work actually holds up not just for one season, but for years.
Sharon Hill’s housing stock is dense and old, and the lots are tight. That combination requires a contractor who can work precisely in a small footprint without disrupting neighboring properties. Our approach here isn’t the same approach you’d take on a wide-open lot in a newer development. It’s measured, deliberate, and built around what your specific property actually needs.
We’re based in Aston, PA connected to Sharon Hill directly via U.S. Route 13 and have been doing excavation, grading, masonry, and outdoor work across Delaware County for over 15 years. Owner Renato Spennato holds a PA contractor license and carries the insurance coverage Sharon Hill Borough specifically requires, including the certificate naming the borough as certificate holder. That’s not a small detail when you’re trying to get a permit processed within the borough’s 15-business-day window.
Out of more than 125,000 licensed Pennsylvania contractors, we hold a BuildZoom score of 102 placing us in the top 11% statewide. That ranking is based on verified project history and review quality, not a paid listing. Customers have called it the best contractor experience they’ve had as a homeowner. On-time, communicative, and accountable which, if you’ve hired contractors before, you know isn’t always the standard.
It starts with a site visit. Before any equipment shows up, we assess the property soil conditions, existing drainage patterns, access points, proximity to neighboring structures, and what the finished project actually needs to accomplish. On Sharon Hill’s small residential lots, this step matters more than it would on a larger property. There’s less margin for error when you’re working 10 feet from a shared wall or a neighbor’s fence line.
Once the scope is clear, permitting comes next. Sharon Hill Borough requires a permit for excavation and grading work, and the process takes up to 15 business days from a complete application. We handle the permit process and satisfy the borough’s insurance certificate requirement so you’re not scrambling to figure out what the borough needs before work can legally begin. PA 811 (Call Before You Dig) is also coordinated before any ground is broken, which is non-negotiable in a 1940s-era borough with buried utilities throughout.
When the work begins, we select equipment for the site not defaulted to whatever’s largest and fastest. Excavation, grading, and drainage planning happen as a coordinated sequence, not as separate tasks bolted together. If your project includes a retaining wall, patio, or outdoor space after the dig, that work flows directly from the same crew without handing off to a separate contractor. You get one point of contact from the first shovel to the finished surface.
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Residential excavation in Sharon Hill covers more ground than most homeowners expect when they first call. Site preparation, land grading, drainage correction, retaining wall excavation, driveway prep, and foundation-adjacent work are all part of what we handle depending on your project. Every job includes a drainage plan not as an add-on, but as a built-in part of how the site is graded. In a borough with documented stormwater challenges and aging combined sewer infrastructure, skipping that step isn’t an option.
For properties along the residential streets off Chester Pike twins, singles, and row homes built primarily in the 1940s the soil has had decades to compact, shift, and settle in ways that affect how water moves across the lot. Original grading from 80 years ago was designed for drainage infrastructure that no longer exists or no longer functions. Correcting that takes more than moving dirt to a new spot. It takes an understanding of how the finished grade will behave during a heavy rain event, and how the work connects to whatever drainage infrastructure exists on the property.
If your goal is a finished outdoor space a patio, a retaining wall, a driveway the excavation and site prep is the foundation that determines whether that investment holds up. We handle the full sequence in-house, from the initial dig through the finished surface, so nothing gets lost between trades and nothing has to be redone because the site prep wasn’t done with the finished project in mind.
Yes, in most cases you do. Sharon Hill Borough requires a permit any time a homeowner or contractor alters site grading or constructs an addition which covers most meaningful excavation and grading projects. The permitting process takes up to 15 business days from a complete application, so it’s not something you can submit the week you want work to start.
There’s also a specific insurance requirement that catches people off guard: contractors working under permits in Sharon Hill Borough must provide General Liability and/or Workers’ Compensation insurance with Sharon Hill Borough named as the certificate holder. This isn’t a generic state requirement it’s specific to the borough. A contractor who doesn’t know this will create delays for you. Before any work begins, PA 811 (Call Before You Dig) notification is also legally required, which matters especially in a borough built out in the 1940s where buried utilities run throughout the residential grid.
Residential excavation in the Delaware County area typically runs between $1,658 and $6,709, with a national average around $3,975. Sharon Hill falls at or slightly above that midpoint because Philadelphia-area labor rates run 15 to 25 percent higher than rural Pennsylvania, and the borough carries a regional cost multiplier compared to the national baseline.
What affects your specific cost most is scope how much material needs to be moved, how deep the dig goes, whether the soil is clay-heavy (which it often is in this part of Delaware County), and how tight the lot access is. On Sharon Hill’s small residential lots, equipment access can add time and complexity that a wider suburban property wouldn’t have. Drainage planning, permit fees, and disposal are all factors that should be clearly itemized in any quote you receive. If a contractor gives you a number without addressing those line items, ask specifically because those are the costs that tend to surface later if they’re not discussed upfront.
Usually both, and in Sharon Hill they’re almost always connected. The borough’s aging combined sewer and stormwater infrastructure means that surface drainage from your yard has to go somewhere and if the grading on your property is flat, reversed, or settled incorrectly, water has nowhere to go except toward your foundation or into low spots that sit for days after a storm.
Homes built in the 1940s throughout Sharon Hill were graded for drainage infrastructure that has since corroded, shifted, or been overwhelmed by decades of use. What looks like a drainage problem at the surface is often a grading problem underneath it. A proper fix addresses both: correcting the grade so water moves away from the structure, and ensuring the drainage path actually connects to somewhere it can go. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is actively studying stormwater mitigation for this part of Delaware County which tells you this isn’t a minor local issue. Getting your own property’s grading right is one of the few things within your direct control.
The physical work on most residential excavation and grading projects in Sharon Hill takes anywhere from one day to a week, depending on scope. What takes longer is the permitting process Sharon Hill Borough’s permit review takes up to 15 business days from a complete application, so the total timeline from first call to first shovel is typically three to four weeks when permitting is factored in.
Scheduling also depends on the season. Spring is the busiest window in Delaware County homeowners who discovered drainage problems over the winter are all trying to book at the same time. If your project is planned for spring, getting on the schedule in late winter gives you more flexibility on timing. Fall is actually a good window for grading and site prep work if you’re planning a patio or retaining wall for the following year the ground is still workable, and you’re not competing with peak spring demand for scheduling.
Yes but it requires the right equipment and the right approach, and not every excavation contractor in Delaware County is set up for it. Sharon Hill’s residential lots are among the densest in the county, with many properties sitting within feet of a shared wall, a neighbor’s fence, or an adjacent structure. Showing up with equipment that’s sized for a wide-open commercial site on a Sharon Hill twin or row home lot causes damage before the actual project even begins.
The answer is equipment that’s appropriately sized for the site, an operator who knows how to work in a tight footprint, and a clear plan for access, staging, and material removal that accounts for the surrounding properties. On lots like these, the site assessment before work begins is just as important as the excavation itself. Understanding where the boundaries are, where buried utilities run, and how the equipment will move through the space without affecting neighboring structures is what separates a well-run residential excavation from one that creates problems it wasn’t hired to solve.
We handle the full sequence excavation, grading, retaining walls, patios, masonry, and outdoor living spaces all in-house, without handing off between contractors. For Sharon Hill homeowners, that matters practically. When you hire an excavation-only contractor, you’re done with them the moment the dirt work is finished. Then you need a separate masonry contractor for the retaining wall, a separate hardscape contractor for the patio, and a separate landscaper to finish the space. Each one is a new estimate, a new mobilization, and a new opportunity for something to not align with what the previous contractor left behind.
When one crew handles the entire project, the site prep is done with the finished surface in mind from day one. The grade is set to support the retaining wall. The retaining wall is built to work with the patio layout. The drainage plan runs through all of it. On a tight Sharon Hill lot where every square foot has to work correctly, that kind of continuity isn’t a convenience it’s what makes the finished project actually function the way it should.
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