About EarthworkScout
EarthworkScout is a search engine for earthwork contractors. Type your city and you get the outfits that dig, clear and grade there, laid out so you can compare them in one place instead of opening ten tabs.
The problem we set out to fix
Search for an excavator and Google hands you businesses filed under one category each. That is not how the trade works. The firm listed as "Excavating contractor" may also clear land, put in septic systems, cut driveways and take demolition. The one listed as "Tree service" may own the machine you need. Which of those jobs a contractor actually takes is the single most useful thing to know before you call, and it is the one thing the search results will not tell you.
What we do
We maintain a directory of excavation, land clearing and site work contractors across the United States. Today it covers 21,051 contractors in 5,894 cities across 51 states, and 10,133 of those carry two or more trades. Every city page lets you filter by the job in front of you rather than by a trade name.
How we build the listings
We compile candidate businesses from public business data, gathering each firm across every local search it appears in. Because the same business surfaces under a different category in each of those searches, merging the duplicates gives us something a single lookup never would: the full set of categories it is filed under. We read the trades out of that set plus the business name, then drop the trades that flood these searches without ever touching dirt, such as roofers, remodelers, realtors, supply yards and lawn-mowing outfits. Septic listings are kept only where there is evidence of installation work rather than tank pumping. Each listing carries its Google rating and review count as a second signal. The full method, with the harvest dates and the drop rules, is on our methodology page.
How we check what we publish
Every number on this site is computed from the dataset at build time, so a count you see on a page is the count in the data, not a marketing figure. City pages say how many of their listings carry Google ratings and what those ratings average; when a city has only one or two contractors, the page says so plainly instead of dressing it up as a market. Our cost guides work the same way: they cite where a range comes from, and where honest numbers vary by region or site conditions, they say that too.
The data has limits and we would rather name them. Listings come from a point-in-time harvest of public records, so a phone number or website can go stale between refreshes, and ratings are Google's, not ours. If something looks wrong, tell us and we will fix the listing.
Who this is for
- Homeowners and land buyers with a lot to clear, a pad to grade, a pool or basement to dig, or a septic system to put in.
- Builders and GCs looking for a dirt sub in a city they do not usually work.
- Owners of the businesses listed, who can correct their trades or claim their listing at no cost.
What a service tag means, and what it does not
A tag means we found evidence of that work. A missing tag means we found none, which is not the same as the contractor refusing the job. Treat the list as a floor, not a ceiling, and ask. We would rather under-claim than put words in a business's mouth.
We also keep the contractors who work out of a truck instead of a yard. They have no address to pin, so directories that need a map marker quietly drop them. Ours says "mobile, no yard" on the card and lists them anyway, because in this trade that is a normal way to run a business, not a red flag.
What we are not
We are not a booking platform, we take no payments or commissions, and we do not sell your job as a lead. Nobody pays to rank here. We are not affiliated with the businesses listed. When you find a contractor you like, you call them directly. Listing details come from public sources and may be out of date, so always confirm scope and price with the company.
Found something wrong?
If a listing is inaccurate, or you run an earthwork business and want to correct the trades we show or claim your listing, contact us.