Drainage
We cut ditches, shape swales, set driveway culverts and regrade the low spots where water stands on your property.
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Pollard's Dozer Service does yard leveling in Buna, TX and across Jasper, Orange, Hardin, Newton and Jefferson counties. We take on the yard that has settled into humps and hollows and the yard that holds water after a rain. Our dozer cuts the high spots and pushes that dirt into the low ones. It shapes the ground to fall away from the house and leaves a smooth surface ready for your sod or seed.
Yard leveling is the work in the yard around a house, while land grading and leveling covers pastures and cleared tracts. Swales and ditches that give the water a path off the lot are part of our drainage and culvert work. A pad built up with placed fill for a house or shop belongs to our dirt work and pads. Each yard starts with a free on-site estimate, and a wet yard is best seen right after a rain.
Tell us about your land — we’ll get right back to you.
Not always. Small bumps in a healthy lawn, the kind you feel under the mower, are a topdressing job for a rake or a lawn crew. That work goes on top of the grass you already have. We do not topdress lawns, so a lawn crew is the right call for that job.
A machine regrade is for a yard that holds water or slopes toward the house. It also fits a yard where the fill has settled or where dirt has to be moved. A regrade moves the dirt the lawn grows in, so plan on new sod or seed once it is done. When a yard is short on dirt, fill or topsoil is brought in, placed and packed with the tracks.
The International Residential Code says lots shall be graded to drain surface water away from foundation walls. It says the grade shall fall not fewer than 6 inches within the first 10 feet. Where lot lines, walls or slopes block that fall, the code calls for drains or swales instead. On a yard, our excavator cuts the swale, and our swale and ditch guide shows how the two differ.
On a regrade, we move the water along its natural path on your own land. Texas Water Code section 11.086 says no person may divert or impound the natural flow of surface waters. It covers doing that in a way that damages another person's property by the overflow. This is general information, not legal advice, and a dispute goes to a Texas real estate attorney.
Buna sits in Jasper County, the type location of USDA's Evadale soil series. Evadale soil is poorly drained, and USDA places it on a flat coastal plain with 0 to 1 percent slopes. That is a foot or less of fall in 100 feet, so the fall a yard needs has to be shaped. NOAA's normals give Port Arthur about 62 inches of rain a year, with August the wettest month.
The Beaumont clay series, described from a Jefferson County site, runs 42 to 60 percent clay. It is poorly drained, and water moves through it very slowly. Where that clay has never been worked, USDA describes gilgai, small knolls 4 to 15 inches above the dips beside them. We do yard leveling in Buna, Lumberton, Silsbee, Orange and Nederland, and throughout the five counties we serve.
On a yard, the dozer does the cutting and filling, and the excavator handles swales and ditches. The dozer tracks pack the fill as it goes in, and the blade leaves the surface smooth. Before the excavator digs, Texas one-call law calls for notice no later than the 48th hour before digging begins. Those 48 hours do not count Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays.
We do not sod, seed, plant or topdress a lawn, and we do not install irrigation or buried drain pipe. The one pipe we set is a culvert under a drive. We do not build retaining walls, pour concrete, repair foundations or level houses. We also do not survey, design drainage or pull permits, so those steps come before the dozer shows up.
From the first walk of the property to the last pass of the blade, here is exactly how it goes.
We come see the property — the trees, the brush, the ground under it, and how wet it runs. What you want cleared, what's worth keeping, and what the job really takes. No blind quotes over the phone.
You get a free estimate with a real number and a real timeline. It covers what's included, from the clearing and the dirt to the shaping and the debris, and it holds unless the scope changes.
The dozer, excavator or mulcher shows up when we said and does the job the way we quoted it. Anything unexpected in the ground, you hear about it immediately, not on the invoice.
We walk the finished ground with you before we call it done. Clean lines, shaped banks, a pad you can build on or a pasture you can mow. Done means you say it's done.
Common questions about yard leveling across Buna & all of Texas. Don't see yours? Give us a call — we're happy to help.
We cut ditches, shape swales, set driveway culverts and regrade the low spots where water stands on your property.
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House pads, barn pads, site prep and fill: dirt hauled, placed, shaped and packed so what you build on it stays put.
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Bulldozer services around Buna and across Texas, pushing out growth, cutting pads and lanes to grade, and shaping pond banks.
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Site dig-outs, soft-spot removal, pond and basin digging and cleanup work with our own excavator.
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New gravel driveways cut and crowned, rutted and muddy drives rebuilt, and ranch roads, lanes and shop pads graveled so they hold up in the wet.
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We build mobile home pads around Buna on ground stripped of grass and roots, with fill packed in layers and crowned to shed water.
View DetailsFamily owned and operated since 1990, with three generations on the same iron. The name on the machine is the family doing the work — and answering the phone.
Dozer, excavator and tracked mulcher under one roof. Clearing, dirt work, grading and the pond get done as one job with one estimate — not three contractors pointing at each other.
We come look at your ground, tell you what it actually needs and what it does not, and hand you a real number. No phone guesses, no surprise extras.
Sandy uplands, gumbo clay bottoms, wet winters and brush that never quits — this is the only dirt we have ever worked, and we build for what it does.
Land to clear, a pad to build, brush that's won too many summers, or a pond you've been thinking about for years? Call or send the form and we'll come look at your ground with you and hand you a free estimate from the family that's worked this dirt since 1990.
Tell us about your land — we’ll get right back to you.