Excavation Contractor in Boerne, TX

The ground under a Boerne lot

Boerne sits in southern Kendall County on the Edwards Plateau, about 1,447 feet above sea level. The soil here is shallow and alkaline. USDA calls the Comfort series well drained with slow water movement. It runs 10 to 20 inches deep, then stops on solid limestone.

That changes how a job runs. Digging a pad or a footing often means breaking rock with a hammer on the excavator. Caliche and rock come out of the hole instead of dirt, so the spoils go off in dump trucks. Select fill usually gets trucked back in to build the pad up.

Cut and fill on a sloped Hill Country lot takes planning. We work off the engineer's plan and the survey when a builder has one. On a house lot or a barn site we set the pad so water runs away from the building. We leave the site on final grade.

Do you need a permit to clear land in Boerne?

Inside the Boerne city limits, taking trees out takes a permit. The city's developer handbook says the permit must be issued and the fee paid before land clearing starts. Dead or dying trees are an exception. So are platted residential lots of half an acre or less.

Mitigation comes into play when a Legacy Tree or a Heritage Tree comes down. The city also states that a tree removal permit has to be in hand before any grading work on site. The Planning Department answers tree questions, and Development Services issues the grading permit.

Outside the city the rules come from the county. The Kendall County Engineer's office says permits are required for all development. That wording covers grading, filling and excavation. We point you to the right desk before the machines roll in for land clearing.

Cedar, live oak and what grows back

Kendall County land grows live oak, Ashe juniper and mesquite. Around here almost everyone calls the juniper cedar. Texas AgriLife Extension describes Ashe juniper as a non-sprouting species. Cut it off or shear it down and it does not come back from the stump.

Mesquite and huisache are a different animal. Those come back from the root once they are cut, which is why they keep returning on opened pasture. On most Boerne tracts the cedar is the bigger job. It fills in thick on unworked acreage and along fence lines.

How we take it out depends on what you want left behind. The forestry mulcher grinds cedar and brush into mulch where it stands. For a clean tract we pull the stumps with the excavator and haul the debris off. Either way, the ground is ready for what you build next.

One more thing on old juniper. Texas Parks and Wildlife lists Kendall County among the counties where the golden-cheeked warbler breeds. The bird nests in mature juniper and oak woodland, so ask the agency before clearing that kind of canyon.

New subdivisions, ranch land and the drive up from Pleasanton

Boerne is filling in fast. The city's own site calls Kendall County the fifth fastest growing county in Texas, and seventh fastest in the nation. Census figures put the city near 17,900 people in 2020 and near 22,700 by 2024.

New rooftops keep going up around Esperanza, Trails of Herff Ranch, Balcones Creek and Waterstone. Builders and developers need site preparation on rock, with pads, cut and fill, drainage and erosion controls. Owners on acreage outside town need pasture opened and ranch roads built. A silted stock tank gets cleaned back out with the excavator.

Cibolo Creek runs through Boerne on its way south to the San Antonio River. Work in the mapped floodplain takes a floodplain development permit. FEMA counts grading and excavation as development. Inside the city, Code Enforcement issues the building and demolition permits.

We also trench and lay the water and sewer lines before a slab goes down. We come up from the Pleasanton yard on I-37 to Loop 1604, then west on I-10 into Boerne.