Excavation
Site excavation, foundation and pad excavation, cut and fill, trenching and mass excavation for homes, commercial sites and development tracts across the San Antonio area, with excavators, dump trucks and skid steers.
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A Bulverde lot can look like ordinary dirt until the bucket goes in. A few inches down it turns to limestone. Federal soil series descriptions for this part of the Hill Country put rock within about 2 feet of the surface. A pad, a footing trench or a septic field has to go into that rock.
Global Contractors LLC is an excavation contractor working Bulverde and the rest of Comal County. We are based at our yard in Pleasanton, south of San Antonio, and have done sitework since 2006. We dig pads and footings in rock, cut driveways, dig stock tanks and run land clearing on grown up acreage. Call (253) 606-9497 and we will look at the site and put a free estimate in writing.
Tell us about the job. We will get right back to you.
Bulverde sits on the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, where the Hill Country steps down toward San Antonio. The soils are thin and they sit on Cretaceous limestone. Two of the shallow series mapped through this country, Tarrant and Brackett, run 5 to 20 inches deep before rock. Brackett forms over limestone of the Glen Rose and Comanche Peak formations.
That changes how a job runs. Digging a foundation, a driveway cut or a utility trench here is rock work. Depth, access and how much rock comes out set the time on site. Underground utility work on this ground takes a machine that can hold a line through stone.
Slope matters as much as rock. Bulverde limits how deep a cut or a fill can go outside a building footprint. A big level pad on a sloping tract gets looked at before it is approved. We would rather find that out at the site visit than halfway through the work.
Ashe juniper, the tree everyone here calls mountain cedar, takes over Hill Country pasture when the grass thins. Federal soil descriptions for these Edwards Plateau sites say the same thing. As the grass goes, Ashe juniper and Texas persimmon move in. On a Bulverde tract that means a solid cedar brake where live oak savanna used to be.
Clearing it inside the city and its extraterritorial jurisdiction runs through a permit. The city says it is unlawful to remove any tree in the city limits or ETJ without one. The city code leaves Ashe juniper and mesquite off its mitigation list. Protected trees start at 6 inches of trunk caliper and 12 feet of height.
One thing catches people out on acreage in the ETJ. Protected trees cannot come off the lot until the county has approved the septic permit for it. Where you want open ground and nothing hauled, forestry mulching grinds the cedar where it stands. The chips stay on the ground and hold the soil.
Fast, and it shows in the ground along US 281. Census estimates put the city at 5,703 people in 2020 and 7,198 in 2024. Comal County went from 161,466 to 201,628 over the same four years. When an old house, barn or slab comes off a lot first, that is the same machines and trucks.
New tracts here carry rules that do not apply south of San Antonio. Comal County is one of eight counties in the TCEQ Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. TCEQ says a plan has to be reviewed and approved before building on the recharge, transition or contributing zones. The Bulverde code sends that approved aquifer protection plan in with the final plat.
The city adds its own limits on top. It caps how much of a site can be covered in the recharge zone. Any job that disturbs an acre or more picks up the stormwater rules. That is routine site preparation for a builder on this side of the county.
It depends which side of the line the property falls on. Inside the city limits and the ETJ, Bulverde Planning and Development Services handles building, platting and tree permits. Out in unincorporated Comal County, the County Engineer's Office is the one to call.
That office issues the septic, or OSSF, permit and the floodplain development permit. It also issues the driveway permit for work in a county right of way. Comal County does not list a building permit for unincorporated land, so septic often comes first. A TCEQ-licensed installer sets and permits the septic system itself.
Before anything goes in the ground we call Texas 811. State law puts that notice in at least 48 hours ahead, not counting weekends or legal holidays. Anything that disturbs soil 16 inches or deeper counts as excavation under that law. From the Pleasanton yard we run I-37 north through San Antonio and up US 281 into Bulverde.
Communities and areas we serve around Bulverde: Johnson Ranch, Oak Village North, Copper Canyon, Bulverde Hills, Bulverde Crossing, Smithson Valley, Spring Branch, Honey Creek, Cibolo Creek, Ammann Road, FM 1863, Guadalupe River State Park.
Bulverde ZIP codes served: 78163, 78070.
Free estimates throughout Comal County and the surrounding area.
(253) 606-9497 Site excavation, foundation and pad excavation, cut and fill, trenching and mass excavation for homes, commercial sites and development tracts across the San Antonio area, with excavators, dump trucks and skid steers.
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Mechanical demolition for houses, garages, barns, commercial buildings, slabs and pools. We take the structure down, haul the debris off and grade the lot.
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Residential demolition for houses, mobile homes, garages, barns and sheds. We take it down, load the debris out and leave the lot graded.
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Commercial and industrial demolition for retail buildings, warehouses, metal buildings, restaurants and strip centers. We take the structure down, haul the debris off and leave the site graded.
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Swimming pool demolition in San Antonio, partial fill in or full removal. We take out the shell, the deck and the equipment, then backfill the hole and grade the yard.
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Concrete removal for driveways, slabs, patios, sidewalks, parking lots and old foundations. We break it out with the excavator, haul it off and level the ground back.
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Land clearing services for lots, acreage and ranch land around San Antonio. We clear brush, mesquite, cedar, trees and stumps with excavators, skid steers and a forestry mulcher.
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Forestry mulching grinds cedar, mesquite and brush into mulch right where it stands. The chips stay on the ground as cover, so nothing leaves the property.
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Site preparation for builders, developers and commercial property owners around San Antonio. We clear and grub, cut and fill to the plan, build pads and set the final grade.
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Dirt work across San Antonio and about 50 miles around the city. We level and grade land, bring in fill dirt, build pads and fix low spots that hold water.
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Underground utility installation around San Antonio: water mains, water lines, sanitary sewer lines, storm drains and culverts. We trench, bed the pipe, backfill in lifts and leave the ground at grade.
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Pond construction across San Antonio and the ranch country around it. We dig stock tanks, ranch ponds and detention ponds, build the dam and cut the spillway.
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Dump truck services across San Antonio and about 50 miles around the city. We haul spoils and debris off jobs and deliver fill dirt, caliche, base and gravel by the load.
Learn MoreA few of the questions we hear most around Bulverde. If yours is not here, call and ask.
Tell us where the property is and what needs to happen: a lot cleared, a slab out, a pad built. Call (253) 606-9497 or send the form, and we will line up a time to come look.
Tell us about the job. We will get right back to you.