How Many Types of Excavations are There?

When it comes to excavation, there are many different types to suit a wide range of purposes. From large-scale earthmoving to small and precise cuts, and everything in between, there’s a lot more to excavating than digging a hole.

In this article we’ve put together an overview of the common types of excavations you’re likely to come across in both residential and commercial construction projects.

Small Excavations

Whether the project is in a backyard or on a big construction site, small excavation cuts are often required to complete the job. This may include detailed excavations for footings, post holes or retaining walls. With the right equipment, excavation can also happen in tight spaces and can perform smaller jobs in backyards that cannot be managed by hand including demolition of a shed, drainage, rock breaking or just a good old clean out if you have an area that’s overgrown with bushes or other mess.

Mid-Size Excavations

Excavation jobs in the mid-size range include site cuts for pools, extensions and new homes, trenching, and site preparation. Of course, on bigger projects, these jobs can be performed larger-scale.

Large-Scale Excavations

Large-scale excavation is often required on property development sites such as apartments or commercial buildings, or civil works such as new roads, rail works or water management. The types of excavations common to these jobs are site cuts, land clearing, cut and fill, site preparation, compacting, and bulk excavations of soil, rock, concrete or other materials.

What Type of Machines are Used?

Because of the huge range of different excavations required, there are specialised excavation plant that have been specifically designed to tackle certain jobs. For instance, where access is tight and small, precise excavations are needed, bobcats or two-tonne excavators are commonly used. For bigger jobs, a six or eight-tonne excavator may be used, either on its own or in combination with a tipper truck. There are also special attachments that can be used with certain plant to get the job done faster and more accurately, including augers, rock grabs and diamond rock saws to name a few.