Lot clearing, forestry mulching, new septic installs and complete site work for homeowners and builders from Snow Hill Road and Savannah Bay to Collegedale and Apison, with crews running in from Birchwood down Highway 58.
At age 9, Josiah Sims got his start when his dad rented a Cat 977L to clear land for their family home. It took only a few days before he was handling all of the finish grading. Since then his resume has grown to include running crews, welding and fabricating transit buses, building additions and pouring concrete, yet he's still the one running site work on the job.
We're not driving in from across the state. Our shop is in Birchwood, a straight shot down Highway 58 and Mahan Gap Road, so Ooltewah jobs get the same crew showing up on time, day after day, without burning half the morning on the road.
Slow-draining Collegedale clay, creek-bottom lots along Wolftever Creek and slopes on White Oak Mountain. We know what's typically under the surface here, so your estimate accounts for real conditions instead of guesswork.
Land clearing and forestry mulching have their own crew and equipment, and so do new septic installs, which keeps your job from waiting behind somebody else's. Someone from our team walks the land with you before we put a number on it, so the estimate you get is honest and costs nothing, and you can finance the work through our quoting platform.
Every service on our menu is available in Ooltewah and the surrounding communities of east Hamilton County. Whether it's a single wooded lot in a new phase off Ooltewah-Georgetown Road or a few acres of grown-up pasture toward Apison, one call gets you a crew that can clear it, prep it and finish it.
A lot of Ooltewah's buildable land is old pasture that has gone to briars, cedar and saplings, especially along Snow Hill Road and out toward Mahan Gap Road. Our crew takes out the brush, underbrush and small timber, and the debris is either hauled away or mulched in place, leaving you with open ground you can actually work. Lots come out ready for the surveyor, the soil test or the builder, whether it's one homesite or a larger tract being split for a new phase.
Forestry mulching grinds brush and saplings where they stand, so there are no burn piles and no truckloads of debris leaving your property. The mulch mat it leaves behind holds soil in place, which matters on slopes running up White Oak Mountain and on ground that drains toward Wolftever Creek. Selective thinning lets you open up a wooded homesite while keeping the hardwoods you want to build around.
Much of Ooltewah's subdivision core ties into Hamilton County WWTA sewer, but rural parcels outside the lines still depend on septic, and WWTA has said it isn't extending sewer into unserved areas just to open up development. New systems here are permitted through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection, and the slow-draining Collegedale clay plays a big part in where a drain field can go and how big it has to be. On the install side, that means brand-new systems for houses and commercial buildings, along with complete replacements, each one laid out exactly as the approved permit shows, whether the parcel sits off Mahan Gap Road or out toward Apison.
Site work is what we do best, and on an Ooltewah homesite it covers the whole sequence: lot clearing, rough grading, digging and pouring the concrete footings, backfill, retaining walls and a dressed final grade. Homesites on the rolling ground near Savannah Bay and the lower slopes of White Oak Mountain often need cut-and-fill work or a retaining wall to make a level pad. We set erosion controls and a gravel construction entrance before the dirt moves, which is what the Hamilton County Water Quality Program expects on single-family lots.
Once the lot is cleared and graded, we trench and lay the lines that bring a house to life: water, sewer and electrical conduit from the road or meter to the foundation. On a sewered subdivision lot, that means a clean run to the tap. On acreage out past Snow Hill or toward Apison, it can mean a long water line and a separate trench to the septic tank. The firm clay subsoil under most of the Wolftever Creek valley gets heavy and slick when wet, so we time the digging for drier weather.
As farms along Ooltewah-Georgetown Road and Snow Hill Road turn into homesites, old farmhouses, barns, sheds and cracked slabs often have to come down first. Once the structure is down, the concrete broken out and hauled off and the debris cleared, we grade the ground so the site is ready for whatever gets built next. We also handle smaller teardowns on older lots around the downtown Ooltewah square.
Whether your property is a grown-up pasture off Snow Hill Road, a wooded homesite below White Oak Mountain or a few acres out toward Apison, we're ready to show up and walk it with you. Estimates are always free across Ooltewah and the surrounding east Hamilton County area. Reach out with the details, and we'll handle every step from untouched ground to a finished grade.
Ooltewah sits in the Wolftever Creek valley, tucked against the foot of White Oak Mountain, with the coves of Chickamauga Lake at Savannah Bay just to the northwest. The valley floor was pasture and hay ground for generations, the slopes climbing toward Dead Man's Gap are wooded, and the creek bottoms stay soft after a rain. Under most of it is the firm, slow-draining clay that soil scientists named the Collegedale series, after the town that surrounds the Ooltewah enclave.
That old farm ground is filling up fast. The 37363 ZIP code grew from about 32,000 residents in 2010 to more than 41,000 in 2020, roughly three times the pace of Hamilton County as a whole, and the regional planning agency's director has said a large share of the county's recent growth landed in Ooltewah. New subdivisions like Sweet Briar on Snow Hill Road and new homes near Bell Mill Road all start as overgrown fields and wooded tracts that need clearing and grading before a footer goes in. That's the work our land clearing services in Ooltewah are built around, along with new septic systems for the rural parcels that sit beyond the sewer lines.
Boundless Excavation & Contracting is based in Birchwood, about 25 miles north. Our crews come down Highway 60 and Highway 58, cut across Mahan Gap Road and roll into town on Snow Hill Road, a drive of roughly 35 to 40 minutes. We work across Hamilton County every week, from lot clearing and grading to full site prep in Chattanooga neighborhoods like Southside and St. Elmo, and Ooltewah is one of the closest growth areas to our home base.
Ooltewah ground is valley ground. The town sits between White Oak Mountain and the Chickamauga Lake embayments, with Wolftever Creek and Little Wolftever Creek winding north through it toward the lake. Most of the valley floor is Collegedale series soil: a silt loam top over firm clay weathered from limestone, which drains slowly and turns slick when wet. That clay shapes how we grade a pad, where a drain field can go and how long a site needs to dry out after a storm. Lots near the creeks and the coves around Savannah Bay can sit low and wet, while homesites climbing toward Dead Man's Gap come with real slope.
Our crews come in from Birchwood on Highway 60 and Highway 58, then fan out across the area: Mahan Gap Road and Snow Hill Road into the north side of town, Ooltewah-Georgetown Road toward Cambridge Square, Lee Highway and I-75 Exit 11 to the downtown square, Apison Pike through Collegedale to Apison, and Ooltewah-Ringgold Road and Mountain View Road to the neighborhoods south and west. Snow Hill Road alone carries more than 10,000 vehicles a day near Ooltewah High School, so we plan equipment drop-offs around school traffic.
The work here is mostly new construction. Subdivisions keep spreading across former farmland, from Sweet Briar on Snow Hill Road to the new phases near Bell Mill Road and the townhomes going in beside Cambridge Square. County planners note that farmland zoned for agriculture can still fit about two houses per acre, so 50- and 100-acre tracts are being cleared and split. Toward the Volkswagen Drive corridor at I-75 Exit 9 and Enterprise South, commercial pads and larger clearing jobs are part of the mix too.
Because Ooltewah is unincorporated, land disturbance runs through the Hamilton County Water Quality Program rather than a city office. On a single-family lot, a county land disturbing permit generally isn't needed until an acre or more is disturbed, but erosion controls, a gravel entrance and final stabilization are required either way. Past one acre, the state's TDEC Construction General Permit comes into play too. Septic permits and lot reviews go through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection, and whether a lot can tie into WWTA sewer is the first question we ask on any rural parcel. We also plan around the seasons: the clay stays wet through winter, so we schedule grading for drier windows.
Josiah or a member of the team walks your property in person, discusses your goals, and provides a free, no-obligation estimate — with financing available through our quoting platform if you need it.
We map out the scope of work — clearing boundaries, grading plan, septic or utility placement — and handle any permitting needs before equipment ever moves.
A dedicated crew and the right equipment for the job — mulchers, excavators, grading equipment — are dispatched to your property.
Our specialized crews get to work — clearing and mulching, installing your new septic system, or handling grading, retaining walls, and concrete as part of full site work.
We clear out debris, restore the site, and walk the finished property with you to make sure everything meets your expectations before we call the job done.
Our land clearing services cover all of Ooltewah, from the lake side near Savannah Bay to the foot of White Oak Mountain, plus the east Hamilton County communities around it. Anywhere on the Tennessee side within roughly 40 miles of our shop in Birchwood, we'll drive out and walk the property with you.
It depends on the lot. Acreage, how thick the brush and timber are, slope, soil and whether the debris is mulched in place or hauled off all change the number. A flat, grown-up pasture off Snow Hill Road prices very differently from a wooded slope on White Oak Mountain. Instead of guessing over the phone, we come out, walk the ground and hand you an itemized estimate at no charge.
Forestry mulching uses a single machine with a mulching head to grind brush, briars and small trees into a layer of mulch right where they stand. There's no burning and no hauling, and the mulch helps hold the clay in place on slopes and near creeks like Wolftever Creek. It's one of the fastest ways to reclaim an overgrown Ooltewah pasture or open up a wooded homesite. Your price comes down to acreage, how thick the growth is and the lay of the land, which is why we set it only after walking the site for free.
It depends on how much ground you disturb. Ooltewah is unincorporated, so land disturbance falls under the Hamilton County Water Quality Program. For a single-family home, a county land disturbing permit generally isn't required until an acre or more is disturbed, but erosion controls and a gravel construction entrance are still expected. Past one acre, you'll also need coverage under the state's TDEC Construction General Permit. Bring your permit questions to the estimate, and we'll go over which of these rules your project falls under.
Yes. Putting in brand-new septic systems ranks among the main things we do. Hamilton County is one of Tennessee's contract counties, so new systems in Ooltewah are permitted through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection rather than straight through the state. With an approved permit and layout in hand, our crew handles the dig, sets the tank, lays in the drain field and finishes by regrading the area. The slow-draining clay common around Ooltewah means the drain field layout really matters.
Many Ooltewah subdivisions tie into Hamilton County WWTA sewer, but plenty of rural parcels and larger tracts sit outside the lines and need septic. The quickest way to know is to check sewer availability for your parcel with WWTA before you buy or build. If sewer isn't available, the next step is a septic permit through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection. Either way, we can trench the sewer lateral or install the new septic system.
Yes. On homesites climbing White Oak Mountain, we clear carefully to control erosion, cut and fill to create a usable pad, and build retaining walls where the grade calls for them. On low lots near Wolftever Creek and the Savannah Bay coves, the focus shifts to drainage and getting the pad up out of the wet ground. When the lot is on a slope, such as the lower flanks of White Oak Mountain, forestry mulching is often the smartest way to clear it, because the mulch it leaves behind protects the soil.
We do. Our crews work across the whole Ooltewah area, including Collegedale, Apison, Snow Hill, the Savannah Bay neighborhoods and the subdivisions along Ooltewah-Georgetown Road, plus nearby Harrison, Tyner and East Brainerd. We come from Birchwood, so the north side of Ooltewah is especially quick for us to reach.
