Grant County, Washington
Excavation in Quincy, WA
Quincy sits on the floor of the Quincy Basin, on Ice Age flood gravel over basalt. Caliche and sand are the two things that catch people out here.
Core sample
What’s under Quincy
- 1Sandy loamTrench walls won’t stand on their own
- 2Caliche 2 to 4 ft thickHas to be broken up. A bucket skids on it
- 3Flood gravel 50 to 85 percentBasalt boulders up to 5.5 ft
- 4BasaltUnder the flood gravel
- Frost depth 18 inFootings and water lines go below it
Illustration based on the ground notes for Quincy, George and Trinidad. Not to scale and not a soil test.
Working ground in Quincy
What the ground is like
- Flood gravel here carries basalt cobbles and boulders up to five and a half feet across, plus granite erratics carried down from the north.
- Cemented caliche is documented in this basin at two to four feet thick. It has to be broken up, because a bucket just skids across it.
- Ephrata type ground changes abruptly from sandy loam to 50 to 85 percent gravel somewhere between 20 and 40 inches. You feel it through the machine.
- Quincy series sand is excessively drained with very rapid permeability. Trench walls in it don’t stand on their own, and we shore accordingly.
- The Quincy Columbia Basin Irrigation District runs 88 miles of main canal and roughly 893 miles of sublateral through this ground. Their facilities get located separately from an 811 ticket.
- Grant County’s design frost depth is 18 inches, the shallowest of any county we work in.
Permits in Quincy
Inside city limits the City of Quincy handles permits. George has its own. Unincorporated ground goes through Grant County’s permit office, and irrigation district facilities are a separate call from 811.
Backcountry Excavation LLC is a registered Washington contractor, licensed, bonded and insured. You can check all of it before you hire us.
Services in Quincy
What we do in Quincy
Site Preparation in Quincy
Raw ground turned into a pad you can build on: cleared, stripped, cut to grade and compacted.
See the detailExcavation and Earthwork in Quincy
Digging, moving and placing dirt. Foundation holes, bulk earthwork, backfill and haul off.
See the detailGrading and Drainage in Quincy
Shaping ground so water leaves the property the way it should, instead of sitting against a building.
See the detailLand Clearing in Quincy
Overgrown or wooded ground opened up. Brush, stumps, slash and debris out, site left workable.
See the detailDriveways and Access Roads in Quincy
Gravel driveways and access roads built or rebuilt to hold up to weather, grade and loaded trucks.
See the detailUtility Trenching in Quincy
Trenching and backfill for water, power and other underground lines, dug to depth and bedded properly.
See the detailFoundation Excavation in Quincy
Foundation holes, footings and cutting to concrete grade, ready for the concrete crew.
See the detailStorm Drainage Systems in Quincy
Catch basins, storm pipe, culverts and drywells that carry storm water off the property.
See the detailRetaining Walls in Quincy
Vertical block and large retaining walls that hold a grade change where dirt alone won’t.
See the detailAsphalt Prep in Quincy
Subgrade cut, base rock placed and compacted, grades held so the paving crew can do their job.
See the detailDemolition in Quincy
Structures, slabs and hardscape taken down, material hauled off and the ground left clean.
See the detailEmergency work in Quincy
Washouts, broken lines, plugged culverts and storm damage. Call or text the owners.
What to do right nowSomething else in Quincy?
Most jobs are a combination. Describe what you want to end up with and we’ll work out the pieces.
Tell us about the jobQuestions
Quincy questions
Do you take commercial site work around Quincy?
Yes. Pads, trenching, utilities, storm and final grade are the same work at any scale, and we’re set up to sub to a general contractor.
How do you handle the caliche?
We plan for it in the bid so it doesn’t come as a surprise on day two. If it turns up thicker than expected you hear about it before we keep going.
Nearby
Other ground we work
Chelan County
Wenatchee, WA
Wenatchee mixes town lots with orchard and acreage on the edges, and the two need very different approaches on the ground.
See the groundDouglas County
Waterville, WA
The Waterville Plateau is easy ground to work on top of and hard ground to dig into, because of what sits about two feet down.
See the groundChelan County
Cashmere, WA
Cashmere, Monitor and Dryden sit on the Wenatchee River bottom. Bedrock is a hundred feet down, so the digging problems come from what the river and the floods left on top of it.
See the groundWhat our machine fits through · How an estimate works · Permits and locates
Call or text the owners
Got a job in Quincy?
Tell us where the site is and what you’re trying to get done. We’ll let you know whether we can take it on and roughly when.
(509) 421-1539