Grading & Land Clearing in Forest City, NC

H&L brings grading, land clearing and tree service to homes and businesses in Forest City. With 7,377 residents in the 2020 Census, it has more people than Rutherfordton or Spindale. The town is about 14 miles from our base in Rutherfordton. Bryson visits the land himself before any work is planned.

Our Grading and Land Clearing Services in Forest City

• Site prep and grading set new homes, shops and commercial pads at the levels your builder needs.
• Raw land becomes a buildable house site, with a pad, an access drive and a slope that sheds water.
• Land clearing opens wooded parcels, from a few scattered trees to a full tract.
• Gravel driveways get a new grade, ditches and a firm base so they stop washing out.
• Hazard trees beside houses and sheds come down from our bucket truck as part of our tree service.
• Wind and ice can drop a limb through the roof at any hour, and our storm damage tree removal crew works 24/7.
• Block retaining walls hold cut banks and stepped yards, with drainage behind them.
• Worn-out garages, barns and outbuildings come down with demolition, and the ground is leveled after.
• Finished slopes and yards are sprayed with hydroseeding to hold the soil in place.

Who Issues Permits for Work in Forest City?

Property inside the city limits or the town's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) goes through Forest City's own building inspections, zoning and planning office. The town's planning and code enforcement page says “most interior and exterior work requires a building permit”, citing section 160D-1110 of the General Statutes. It also warns of a penalty, on top of the regular fees, for work done without one. Town Hall's number is (828) 245-0148 if you want to ask about your parcel first. For land outside those lines we check with Rutherford County, and either way the permit question gets answered before we unload any equipment.

New Driveways Off US 74, US 221 and US 64

Three US highways serve Forest City: US 74, US 221 and US 64, along with NC 108. All of them are state highways, so a new entrance off one, or a change to an old one, usually needs an NCDOT driveway permit first. We sort out that permit before the shoulder is cut.

Roadside trees can block the view from a new entrance, so they may have to come down before the grading starts. In the photo, our bucket truck is at a roadside tree on another job. Then we shape the drive so rainwater runs into the ditch instead of across the pavement.

Water Lines on Forest City's Own System

Forest City's water comes out of the Second Broad River and goes through a town treatment plant built in 1948, able to produce 8 million gallons a day. If your address is on that system, ask the town who owns the pipe on your side of the meter before we dig. Then our crew trenches and lays the water line up to your foundation.

Before the trench is dug, we file a locate request with NC811, with three working days' notice, so the utilities can flag their buried lines. That keeps the bucket away from a gas line or a phone cable that nobody remembered. Where the new line crosses a lawn, we backfill the trench and grade it smooth, and the strip can be hydroseeded once it settles.

Older Lots, Retaining Walls and Drainage

Forest City was incorporated in 1877 as Burnt Chimney and took its current name in 1887. On a lot in a town that old, the ground can hide footings, buried pipe or fill from earlier buildings. We clear what is left above ground, then grading brings the lot back to an even base.

Where a yard steps down toward the street, a stacked block wall can hold the slope. This photo from one of our jobs shows a wall rising one row at a time with its drain pipe laid out beside it, because water needs a way out from behind the block.

“Bryson & the team at H& L worked with us to quickly get a job done around weather delays. Well done guys. Highly recommend.”

Mary H., Google review

Have a Project in Forest City?

Call (828) 289-8180, 24/7 for storm damage.

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