Dunedin's Excavation Experts
No job is too big or small—we handle everything from start to finish.
Our diverse range of machinery works seamlessly together to get the job done efficiently.
Our 1.7-ton excavator features adjustable tracks, narrowing to just 950mm, making it perfect for tight-access areas. Paired with our Skid Steer and three trucks, we’re equipped to tackle a variety of projects.
Need something bigger? We’ve got you covered with our 3.5-ton excavator, larger truck, and all the necessary gear to take on more demanding jobs.
Excavation in Dunedin
Not much gets built on a Dunedin section without digging first. A flat pad for a house, a trench for a new water line, a driveway that drains instead of turning to mud by June — excavation is usually the first job on site, and the one that decides whether everything built on top of it behaves itself.We dig site cuts, footings, trenches and driveways across the city, on the tight, steep and awkward sections as much as the easy flat ones.
Why Dunedin ground is its own problem
Excavation here isn't quite the same job as excavation on flat, stable ground, and it's worth knowing why before the digger turns up. A lot of Dunedin's hill suburbs are covered in loess — a fine, wind-blown silt laid down during the last ice age, sitting over weathered rock and slope-wash material. It holds its shape well when it's dry, and loses strength when it's wet. GNS Science maintains a landslide database for the Dunedin district, and the Otago Regional Council holds the hazard mapping that goes with it — this city has a genuine, well-documented history of ground moving on the steep sections. Cut into that ground and the same rule applies as building a wall against it: a batter that looks solid on a dry day in January can slump after a wet week in July if it's left too steep, or left open too long. None of that means your section is a problem to dig — most aren't. It means the ground gets read on the day, not off a photo, and how it's cut and drained matters more here than it would on flat land. Add the practical side on top. A lot of Dunedin sections are steep. Access is often tight — a driveway between two houses, no room to turn a truck, a back section with one way in. And winter shortens the run of dry days you get before saturated ground turns a straightforward dig into a mess and a compaction problem. None of that stops the work. It changes how it's planned and when it runs.
What we do
Site cuts and building platforms — cutting a slope back to flat, usable ground for a house, a shed, a deck, or anything else that needs level ground under it.
Foundations and footings — excavation, footings and prepared pads dug to plan, level and compacted, ready for the builder to start on.
Trenching and services — trenches for water, wastewater, power and stormwater lines, and the new connections that go with them.
Section clearing — clearing a section back to bare ground: scrub, old structures, rubbish and years of build-up removed, then graded off so it's actually ready to work with. A good first step before a build, or before a section goes on the market.
Driveway prep — benching and levelling a slope into a driveway that drains properly and doesn't wash out, ready for base course or concrete.
Spoil removal — surplus dirt, clay and spoil dug out and carted away, or brought in and spread if you need to build a site up. Truck and digger working together so it doesn't sit in a heap on the lawn for a fortnight.
For the tight stuff, our 1.7-tonne excavator's tracks adjust down to 950mm — narrow enough for a lot of gateways and side accesses a standard-width machine can't get through. Need something bigger? There's a 3.5-tonne excavator and a larger truck for it. Skid steer and three trucks in total round out the gear. We follow all the standard safety protocols, arrange traffic management where a job needs it, and carry public liability insurance.
Do you need consent to dig?
There are two different questions here, and they get mixed up a lot.
One is a building consent. That's about what you're building, not the digging itself. If a cut needs to be held back with a retaining wall, the consent question is the wall's — exempt only if it holds back 1.5 metres or less and carries no surcharge, covered in full on our retaining walls page.
If you're digging footings for a new structure, that's normally part of the structure's own building consent, not a separate one for the dig.
The other is a resource consent, under the District Plan, and this one's about the earthworks itself — how much ground is being cut or filled, how steep it's left, how close to a boundary, and whether the site sits on land the council has flagged for instability.
Dunedin's District Plan treats earthworks in two tiers: smaller-scale work can generally go ahead as a permitted activity, while larger-scale work needs resource consent. Exactly where that line sits depends on your zone, your slope and your site — it's not something a web page can responsibly reduce to one number, and we won't pretend otherwise. If your land carries a note on its title about instability, the same hazard-land process applies here as it does for a retaining wall — see our retaining walls page for how that works and why it exists.Tell us what you're planning, and if there's a real chance your job crosses into consent territory — either kind — we'll say so before you commit to anything, and point you to the council if it needs their sign-off rather than ours.
Underground services — checked before we cut
Before any digging starts, we check what's underground through "beforeUdig" — the free national service that shows the approximate location of registered pipes and cables.
We lodge the request and get the plans back before the machine goes near the ground.It's not a guarantee. Not every asset owner is signed up, and older or private services don't always show up on a plan — an irrigation line laid by a previous owner, or a power feed nobody registered. That's why the first cut on a trench is done carefully rather than on trust, and why hitting something nobody could reasonably have known was there is covered under the variation terms in the quote, not swept under it.
What actually drives the price
Nobody can price a dig off a phone call, and anyone who tries is guessing.
Here's what moves the number:
Access. The big one. If a machine and a truck can get to where the work is, the job is straightforward. If it's a narrow gateway, a back section, or everything has to come in on the small machine, the job takes longer and costs more. We take on plenty of sites other contractors won't, but access still has to be priced honestly.
Ground conditions. Dunedin clay and loess dig differently to fill or gravel, especially wet. Soft or wet ground slows the work and can change how it's done.
Depth and volume. A shallow scrape and a two-metre cut are different jobs. More ground moved means more machine time and more truck movements.
Where the spoil goes. Everything that comes out of the ground has to go somewhere. A tight site with nowhere to stockpile means more truck trips off site, and truck trips are money. It's a line people forget until they see it on the quote.
Underground services. Known services get worked around. Unknown ones found mid-dig can mean stopping, checking, and sometimes redesigning around them.
Weather. Wet ground is slower to dig, harder to compact, and sometimes not worth digging at all until it dries out.
Consent. If the job needs a resource consent, or ties into a building consent, budget for council fees and time on top of the dig itself.
What actually happens, start to finish
So you know what you're agreeing to:
1. We come and look. Free, anywhere in Dunedin. We'll walk the site, check the access, and tell you what we think the job needs.
2. You get a written quote. Valid for 7 days, and it's the price we charge — not a number that grows once we're on site. Anything genuinely unforeseen is covered in the variation terms, and we'll talk to you before acting on it.
3. Services get located. A "beforeUdig" request goes in, with marks on the ground where they're needed, before the digger starts.
4. If consent is needed, that goes through before anything starts on site — which takes time, so it needs to sit in your timeline, not just ours.
5. We dig. Cutting, trenching, or clearing, however the job's scoped.
6. Spoil goes off site, or gets spread and graded if that's the plan.
7. We tidy up before we leave. Site left clean and ready for the next trade, or ready to use.
The jobs other people turn down
Steep sections, narrow gateways, no room to swing a machine — that's a lot of what we do.We've built a ramp to get an excavator up a driveway before a job could even start, because there was no other way in. Our 1.7-tonne machine narrows down to 950mm specifically for the gateways and side accesses a standard-width digger can't reach.That's usually why we get the call. It's also usually why somebody else didn't want it.
If you've had people not turn up to quote your job because of the access, give us a call or send a photo. We'll tell you honestly whether it can be done.
Common questions
How long does an excavation job take? Depends on the size and the ground. A straightforward site cut or trench on a section we can get a machine onto is usually a matter of days. Add difficult access, wet ground or a consent and it stretches. We'll give you a realistic timeframe when we quote, not an optimistic one.
Can you dig in winter or wet weather? Yes, though Dunedin's wet clay gets harder to work and slower to compact when it's saturated, and short winter days don't help. Some jobs are better timed for a dry spell. We'll tell you if yours is one of them.
Do I need consent to do earthworks on my section? Sometimes. It depends on how much ground is moving, how steep it's left, and whether your land has instability on record. We'll flag it if we think your job's close to the line, and tell you when it needs a conversation with the council rather than just a digger..
What happens if you hit a pipe or cable that wasn't marked? We check with beforeUdig before we start, but not every service is registered or visible on a plan. If we hit something nobody could reasonably have known was there, that's covered in the variation terms, and we'll stop and talk to you before doing anything about it.
Do you take the spoil away, or can I keep it? Either. Most jobs it goes off site. If you want it kept on site — to build up a low spot, say — we can spread and grade it instead.
Do you do small jobs, like just a trench? Yes. A single trench or a small site clearance is a real job and gets quoted like one.
How much does excavation cost in Dunedin? Honest answer: it depends on access, ground, depth and volume, and those vary enormously between sections — any number on a web page would be misleading. That's why the on-site look is free. It's the only way to give you a figure that means anything.
Get a price on your dig
Free on-site quote, anywhere in Dunedin. Send us a photo of the site to start with if that's easier — we can usually tell you a lot from one picture. Call Bud on 0274649805 or press the yellow button below to have a chat and get your project sized up.
