"Dirt work" covers most of what an excavation contractor does that isn't a basement or a trench: bringing in fill to raise a low spot, building a pad for a shop or a house, hauling off a pile of spoil, cutting a driveway, or digging and shaping a pond. It looks simple from the road. The part that decides whether it holds up is what dirt goes where, and how it's compacted, especially on Sedgwick County clay.
Fill dirt, topsoil and structural fill aren't the same thing
| Material | What it is | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Topsoil | The dark, organic top layer. Grows grass; settles and compresses. | The last few inches of a yard, over the fill, so grass will grow. |
| Common fill (fill dirt) | Subsoil with little organic matter, often clay around here. Cheap or free when someone's digging nearby. | Raising and shaping a yard, filling a low spot, backfilling around things that won't carry weight. |
| Structural / engineered fill | Fill chosen and placed to a spec, often a select soil or crushed rock, compacted in thin lifts and sometimes tested. | Under slabs, footings, driveways and building pads, where settlement would crack something. |
The common mistake is building a pad out of whatever dirt was handy, dumped in one thick pile. Organic topsoil and loose fill keep settling for years, and a shop slab on top of them cracks and tilts. A pad that has to carry weight should be stripped of topsoil first, then built up in compacted lifts.
Our clay changes the plan
Much of Sedgwick County has clay soils with a high shrink-swell potential: they swell when wet and shrink and crack as they dry. Used as fill under a slab, that clay can heave the slab in a wet spring and drop it in a dry August. That's why pads for slabs and buildings often get a select fill or a layer of crushed rock, and why moisture and compaction matter when clay is used at all. The free USDA Web Soil Survey lets you look up the mapped soils on your own lot, including their shrink-swell rating, before you plan a pad. See site prep and grading for how pads and yard grades are set.
Hauling: bringing dirt in and taking it away
- Volume. Dirt is bought, moved and priced by the cubic yard. Loose dirt in a truck takes up more space than the same dirt compacted in place, so plan on ordering more than the hole's measured volume.
- Balance cut and fill. The cheapest dirt is the dirt already on your lot. A contractor who can use spoil from a footing or pond dig as fill elsewhere on the property saves trucking both ways.
- Spoil disposal. Dirt mixed with concrete, roots or trash costs more to get rid of than clean dirt. Ask where the spoil is going and whether disposal is in the quote. Broken slabs and footings from a teardown are their own haul; see demolition excavation.
- Access. Loaded dump trucks are heavy. Getting them across a yard, over a septic field or up a driveway can leave ruts or crack concrete, so the route is part of the plan.
Hauling is one of the biggest line items on most dirt jobs; see what drives excavation cost. An excavation contractor in Wichita with its own trucks can usually balance cut and fill across several jobs on the same lot, which is where most of the savings come from.
Tell us about the dig
(316) 869-0053Fill dirt and topsoil delivery: how much to order
Fill dirt and topsoil are sold by the cubic yard, so the order starts with three measurements: the length and width of the area in feet, and how many inches deep it needs to come up. One cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. A 20 by 30 foot low spot raised 6 inches is 300 cubic feet, a little over 11 yards before any allowance. The same arithmetic tells you why a teardown is a fill job: a 30 by 40 foot basement 7 feet deep is 8,400 cubic feet, about 311 yards before shrinkage. How to fill the old basement so it doesn't settle, and the asbestos and permit steps before the walls come down, are on the demolition page.
The allowance is the part people skip. Dirt in a truck is loose; spread, rolled and settled, it takes up less room. An Iowa highway research study on fill shrinkage measured roughly 10% to 35% more excavated soil needed than the finished, compacted volume, depending on the soil. Topsoil spread for grass barely gets compacted; fill rolled in lifts under a pad shrinks the most. Use the calculator for a planning number and let the supplier or contractor set the final one. Published national ranges for digging, machine time and minimum charges are on what excavation costs around Wichita.
A few delivery details that change the order: ask how many yards one load holds, since a single-axle and a tandem dump truck carry different amounts and a partial load can cost nearly as much as a full one. Ask whether the fill is screened (no rocks, roots or chunks of concrete) and whether the topsoil is screened too. Tell the driver where to drop the pile; a loaded truck backing over a sprinkler line, a septic field or a thin driveway is how a cheap delivery gets expensive. For anything that will carry a slab, the fill should be the right material placed in lifts, not just the right number of yards, as covered above.
Building pads
A pad for a house, shop, barn or driveway is graded so it sits above the surrounding ground and sheds water away from the building. The usual order: strip the topsoil, cut or fill to the planned elevation, place fill in thin lifts with compaction between them, then shape the final slope away from the pad. On flat Wichita-area lots, a pad that's set a little high and graded to drain is cheap insurance against water at the slab edge. Pads for homes and additions are usually part of a permitted building job through MABCD.
Pond dig-outs and clean-outs
Ponds are classic dirt work: dig the basin, use the spoil to build up the bank or a dam, and shape the overflow. An old pond that has silted in can be cleaned out and deepened, with the muck spread and dried on site or hauled. Pond work can involve agencies beyond the county: Sedgwick County's floodplain page notes that permits from the Kansas Division of Water Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or KDHE may be needed for some projects. Ask the contractor who checks that before the first bucket of dirt moves. For a new pond, here's when Kansas wants a dam or stream permit and how big and deep to go: pond digging around Wichita.
Fill in the floodplain needs a permit
Sedgwick County says any development inside a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area must be reviewed and permitted by MABCD, and its definition of development includes filling, grading and excavation. That means hauling in fill to raise a low corner of a floodplain lot is a permitted job, not just a weekend with a skid steer. Check your lot on the county's floodplain maps or call the Wichita/Sedgwick County Floodplain Manager at 316-660-1840, and see permits and Kansas 811. Every dig, even for a pond or a pad, starts with a Kansas 811 locate.
Common questions
Is fill dirt good enough under a shop slab?
Not usually by itself. Under a slab you want topsoil stripped off and fill placed in compacted lifts, often a select fill or crushed rock on top, because loose fill and Sedgwick County clay settle and move.
Do I need a permit to bring in fill dirt?
If the lot is in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, yes: MABCD permits filling and grading there. Outside the floodplain, fill is usually part of a larger permitted job, if any. Always get a Kansas 811 locate before digging.
How much fill dirt do I need?
Measure the area and the average depth to get cubic yards, then add an allowance (about 10% for topsoil, 25-35% for rolled or compacted fill) because loose dirt compacts once it's placed. The calculator on this page does the math; the written quote sets the final number.