Excavation Contractors in Pittsburgh, PA

Excavation contractors in Pittsburgh city neighborhoods spend their days on slopes and in tight spaces. The city covers about 55 square miles of land, rises from 710 feet at the rivers to 1,370 feet, and has 800 sets of public stairs with 44,645 treads. Many houses have no driveway at all, just steps from the sidewalk. Getting a machine to a backyard is often the hardest part of the job, and we plan it before anything else.

Laterals the owner owns

Pittsburgh Water makes the property owner responsible for the entire sewer lateral, from the house to the public main, with the utility maintaining the main and the wye. Many city laterals are old clay pipe running downhill under steps and sidewalks. Replacing one usually means a trench through the front yard and a sidewalk or street opening, with city permits and restoration as part of the job. On the water side, the owner's part runs from the curb box to the meter, and Pittsburgh Water reports more than 12,500 private lead line replacements so far.

Mount Washington and the coal seam

The Pittsburgh coal seam is named for its outcrop high on the north face of Mount Washington, known in early days as Coal Hill. A mine worked the outcrop about 200 feet above the river by 1760, and by 1796 mines ran about 1,800 feet along the face of the hill. Around 1765 a mine fire burned for years and caused part of the hillside face to collapse. Undermined ground is part of the city's history, especially on the slopes above the rivers.

Slides and slopes

The USGS identified more than 3,000 recent landslides in Allegheny and Washington counties and noted that fill failures are common in the urban county. Retaining walls behind city houses, many of them old stone or block, hold back a lot of soil. When we dig near one, we look at its condition, avoid loading the top, and keep water from building up behind it.

Weather

Pittsburgh averages 44.1 inches of snow a season, with snowfall that has ranged from 8.8 inches (1918 to 1919) to 80 inches (1950 to 1951), and about 39.61 inches of precipitation a year. Spring thaws on clay hillsides are when slopes are weakest.

Neighborhood by neighborhood

With 90 neighborhoods, conditions change block to block. North Side streets have many well-preserved 19th-century homes on tight lots, where a lateral or rear footing is dug with the smallest machine we own. Hilltop neighborhoods along Mount Washington and the South Side Slopes add stairs, retaining walls and long downhill laterals. Flatter river-level areas trade slopes for higher groundwater. The city's combined sewer system dates to the early 1900s, so older lines are common everywhere.

Common city jobs

• Sewer lateral and water service digs, including street sections
• Retaining wall excavation and backfill
• Downspout lines and drains on sloped lots
• Garage and porch teardowns
• Small additions and rear footings

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