Fill Dirt and Excavation
Wellington, FL

Wellington is flat, low ground that grew out of old farmland, and the wet-season water table is often close to the surface. That decides what a lot can do: a pad that sits an inch too low holds water against a slab, and a paddock or drive that is not shaped puddles after the first big storm. Fill dirt and excavation are two directions of the same job. Bring ground up where it is too low, or cut it down where a footing, a drain or a driveway base has to go. We run both with one machine.

The Bobcat T740 and its 60-inch grapple push and spread fill, level a graded pad and dig a cut to depth, at $1,385 a day with an operator. Call (561) 779-3213, give us the address and what the ground has to do when we are done, and the estimate is free.

We publish the machine rate and not a per-yard or per-ton price for material. The day rate covers the T740 and an operator pushing, spreading and leveling. The fill itself is delivered and dumped by the load and priced by whoever supplies it, and it depends on how many loads your lot needs, so we say call for a quote rather than guess a number that would be wrong next week. The estimate is where the number of loads and the number of days are worked out for your lot.

People ask whether fill is the same as topsoil. They are different materials with different jobs: fill is what you build up and compact under a pad, a drive or a slab, and topsoil is what you plant in once the ground is at its final height. Most Wellington lots need fill first and, if you are planting, a thin layer of something better last. Tell us which end you are on and we will scope only that.

Wellington’s canals, swales and pump stations are managed through the Acme Improvement District, a special drainage district that the Village now runs as its surface-water utility, alongside regional flood control from the Lake Worth Drainage District. It is not the Indian Trail Improvement District that governs Loxahatchee and The Acreage, so the culvert and swale rules you hear about next door do not carry over. Fill that raises a lot also changes where its water goes: a higher pad can send runoff toward a neighbour, a road or a swale, which is exactly what a drainage district and the Village look at.

Before the first load is spread we walk the lot for the things fill can hurt: a swale or culvert at the edge, a drain line, a well or a septic drainfield on a parcel that has one. A compacted drainfield is a repair bill nobody wants, and every dig starts with a free Sunshine 811 utility locate so buried power, water and cable are marked before the bucket goes in.

Wellington is an incorporated village with its own rulebook, so the Village and not the county is the desk. Its Planning, Zoning & Building Department sits at 12300 Forest Hill Boulevard, (561) 753-2430. Moving soil is not regulated like clearing brush: grading, filling and changing drainage can trigger a separate review, and we do not guess whether a given pad needs its own permit or rides in with a building or site permit. That is a Village determination made case by case. We confirm it before the machine is booked and tell you the answer in writing. Read our permits and regulations guide for the county-wide picture.

The second approval is usually your community. Almost every Wellington address sits inside a gated or deed-restricted community, among them Binks Forest, Olympia, Versailles, Grand Isles, the Isles at Wellington and the Landings, and many run an architectural review for a raised pad, a re-graded paddock or any visible change to the lot. A Village permit does not clear the board, and a board approval does not clear the Village. In the Equestrian Preserve Area the same two questions apply to paddocks, ring pads and trailer access. Once the ground is filled and set, Bobcat grading in Wellington shapes it for drainage, and land clearing in Wellington covers what comes off the lot first.

A filled and graded Wellington lot rarely ends there. The next stop is usually the building itself (construction in Wellington), the roof over it (roofing in Wellington), an association that has to approve the change (property management in Wellington), or food for the crew and the open house afterwards (food truck catering in Wellington).