Serving Wharton, TX
RLS Land Solutions does dirt work in Wharton, Texas and across Wharton County. Dirt work here means two things most of the time. It means moving water and raising ground. The land around Wharton is flat and the county gets about 42 inches of rain a year. Water sits where nothing tells it to leave. We grade with large excavators and dozer class equipment, and we haul with our own tandem dump trucks. Fields, homesites, pads and ranch ground all get the same treatment. We set a plan for the fall, then move dirt to match it. We have run this equipment as a family for 15 years. Dirt work jobs here start around $10,000.
Wharton is a town that pays attention to elevation. Around 60 percent of the city sits in the 100 year floodplain, and the 2017 flood is still recent memory. That shapes how people build here. New slabs go higher. Driveways get crowned and yards get shaped to send water toward a ditch. Nobody here wants water standing against a foundation. Out on farm ground the same thinking applies to fields and pasture. We do the grading side of that work and the hauling that goes with it.
Tell us about your project — we’ll get right back to you.
Flat ground is the whole problem around Wharton. There is not enough natural fall to move water off a property, so it has to be built in. We start by finding where water can actually go. Usually that is a roadside ditch, a field ditch or a creek. Then we set a grade from the high side of the property down to that outlet. A quarter inch of fall per foot moves water across a yard. Across a field it takes less, but it takes consistency, since one flat stretch will hold water.
Most drainage jobs here balance on site. We take dirt from the high spots and put it in the low ones. That keeps truck counts down and puts the cost in machine hours. Some sites do not balance, and then we bring material in from our pits. We also shape swales, which are shallow grassed channels that carry water quietly. Where a driveway crosses a swale, the culvert has to sit at the right grade. Set it too high and water backs up behind it. Grade is the part people skip and pay for twice.
A homesite outside Wharton usually needs to come up before a slab goes down. How far up depends on your survey and your plan. We build the site to the elevation you give us, and we work in packed lifts so the ground does not settle later. Around the building we set the grade to fall away in every direction. Water that leaves the slab still has to leave the property. The site grade and the drainage plan have to agree. On acreage that often means shaping a path from the house down to a ditch or a low corner.
Driveways and shop pads get the same attention. A driveway on flat ground turns into a canal if it sits lower than the yard. We crown it and ditch the sides so water runs off instead of down the middle. Shop and barn pads get built up and packed the same way a house pad does. A metal building on soft fill will show it at the door. If the site was just cleared, we can grade right behind the clearing while the equipment is still there. That saves a second trip out.
Farm ground in this county gets worked hard and settles unevenly. Ruts fill with water and stay wet into planting. Old turn rows sink. Low corners hold water long enough to kill the crop in them. We regrade fields to take those spots out and give the surface a consistent fall toward the ditch. On rice and row crop ground, an even surface matters more than a steep one. We cut the humps down and use that dirt to fill the holes, so most of the material stays on the farm.
Pasture is the same job with different reasons. Cattle cut ruts around gates and water troughs, and old wallows hold standing water. Standing water in a pasture breeds mosquitoes and kills grass. We knock the high ground down, fill the wet spots and leave a surface a tractor can run across. Ground that was just cleared usually needs this too, since root holes and machine tracks leave it rough. Grading behind a clearing job is what turns a cleared tract into usable pasture. Timing this after a dry stretch gets a better finish.
Free, no-obligation estimates throughout Wharton County.
(281) 750-6510From the first look at the ground to the last pass of the grade, here is exactly how it goes.
We meet you at the property and read the job off the ground itself: what is growing, where water sits, how trucks and excavators get in. Big dirt work prices off what is really out there.
You get a free quote with a real number and a real plan: what gets dug or cleared, how many loads move, where the dirt comes from or goes. It holds unless the scope changes.
The equipment shows up when we said. Excavators dig, trucks run in rotation, and on deadline jobs we run shifts around the clock until the volume is moved.
The last pass matters as much as the first load. Pads compacted and holding elevation, ponds shaped and ready for water, ground graded so it drains. We look at the finished work with you before we leave.
What Wharton property owners ask us most about dirt work & grading. Don't see yours? Give us a call — we're happy to help.
A pond you have been putting off, a pad that needs building, land that needs clearing, or a job that needs truckloads of select fill? Call or send the form. Tell us where the property is and what you want the land to do, and we will set a time to come look at it.
Tell us about your project — we’ll get right back to you.