Serving Hamilton County

Drainage, Retaining Walls, and Hauling in Cincinnati, Ohio

We've said Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati for over 35 years, and the Ohio half of that is real work. Our yard is in Crittenden, roughly half an hour up I-75, and the ground across the river is ground we already know. The same Kope shale that forms Cincinnati's valley walls runs under the Kenton and Campbell county hillsides, and it acts the same on both sides: strong dry, unstable once it's wet and cut into.

What changes on the Ohio side is room and rules. Cincinnati's zoning code names the Kope formation and treats a 20 percent slope over it as evidence of critically unstable ground, so hillside work here comes with caps on cut, fill, and wall height. Off the hillsides, USDA mapping puts more than half of Hamilton County under urban land and made ground, and there's no back corner to push spoil into. The dig turns into a hauling problem, and that's the job 14 dump trucks and our own drivers were built for.

Nearly half of Cincinnati's housing went up before 1950, and more than four in ten homes date to 1939 or earlier, so the work here is renewal rather than new ground: roof water that never had a piped path away from the house, a failed drive or apron, a hillside wall that's given up. The upland neighborhoods sit on fragipan soils that hold a perched water table a couple of feet down all winter, and the region's combined sewers have been under a federal consent decree since 2004, so where surface water ends up is a real question here, not an afterthought.

In demand around Cincinnati

Every service travels. See land development and production work, or call 859-910-9272.

Cincinnati, OH questions

Do you work in Ohio, or only in Northern Kentucky?

Both. Our shop is in Crittenden, Kentucky, about half an hour up I-75, and Greater Cincinnati has been in our service area for over 35 years. An Ohio job gets the same excavators, the same 14 trucks, and the same crew that works the Kentucky side.

What are the rules for excavation on a Cincinnati hillside?

Stricter than they are across the river. In the city's hillside overlay, retaining walls are capped at eight feet, cut and fill are capped at eight feet cumulative, and the application calls for a geotechnical evaluation. Steep slopes and deep digs need a geotechnical engineer on them. We build to that plan. We don't write the soils report.

What causes standing water in older Cincinnati yards?

Usually the soil and the age of the house together. The upland neighborhoods sit on fragipan soils that perch water roughly two to three feet down from December into spring, so it can't drain down, it has to be carried away. And plenty of these houses went up before anyone piped a downspout. We regrade, tie roof water into buried pipe, and build the path the water needs.

Can you haul spoil out of a tight city lot and bring material back in?

Yes, and that's usually the hard part of a Cincinnati job. There's no room to stockpile, so the dirt has to leave the day it comes out and the stone has to arrive when the machine is ready. We run 14 dump trucks with our own drivers, so both ends of that run on our schedule instead of a broker's.

Working on something in Cincinnati?

We're minutes up the interstate. Tell us what the ground needs and we'll come look at it.

859-910-9272 Get an Estimate