Lot clearing, forestry mulching, new septic installs and complete site work for homeowners and builders from Hixson and North Shore to East Brainerd and Lookout Valley, with crews running in daily from Birchwood down Highway 58.
Josiah Sims was 9 when his dad rented a Cat 977L to clear the land for their family home. Within a few days he was doing all the finish grading. He's since run crews, welded and fabricated transit buses, built additions and poured concrete, and he still runs site work himself.
Karst rock, red clay, ridge slopes and floodplain parcels. We've dug into all of it from St. Elmo to Hixson, so your estimate accounts for what's actually under the surface instead of what's typical somewhere else.
Land clearing and forestry mulching have their own crew and equipment, and so do new septic installs. That keeps your job from waiting behind somebody else's.
We walk your property and give you a straight, free estimate. Financing is available through our quoting platform for homeowners who'd rather spread out the cost.
Every service on our menu is available inside Chattanooga city limits and across the surrounding Hamilton County communities. Whether it's a single infill lot in North Shore or a few wooded acres off East Brainerd Road, one call gets you a crew that can clear it, prep it and finish it.
Leave a Chattanooga lot alone for two summers and kudzu and Chinese privet will swallow it, whether it's a vacant parcel along Brainerd Road or a back field in Lookout Valley. We clear brush, underbrush and small timber, then haul or mulch the debris so you're left with open, workable ground. Lots are ready for the surveyor, the perc test or the builder, and we handle everything from a single city lot to larger acreage on the edge of town.
Forestry mulching grinds brush and saplings where they stand, so there are no burn piles and no truckloads of debris. The mulch layer it leaves behind holds soil in place, which matters on hillside lots at the foot of Signal Mountain and on ground draining toward North Chickamauga Creek. Selective thinning lets you open up a wooded lot while keeping the good hardwoods you want to build around.
Most of Chattanooga proper runs on city sewer, but properties outside the sewer lines in unincorporated Hamilton County, out in Middle Valley, Harrison and the rural ground north of Hixson, depend on septic. In Hamilton County, new systems are permitted through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection, and karst rock and clay soils play a big part in where a drain field can go. We focus on new septic system installation for homes and commercial buildings, plus full system replacements, built to the approved permit layout.
Site work is where we earn our keep: clearing the lot, rough grading, digging and pouring concrete footings, backfilling, building retaining walls and dressing the final grade. On sloped lots off Missionary Ridge and the ridge roads, retaining walls and stepped grading are often what make a site buildable. Inside the city, every new single-family home needs a City of Chattanooga Land Disturbing Permit, and we grade and stabilize to keep your site in line with it.
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 street or meter to the foundation. On our Southside project we trenched every utility to the house before the footers went in. Chattanooga's limestone ledges can show up a couple of feet down, and we're equipped to dig through them.
Older houses, detached garages and cracked slabs in neighborhoods like St. Elmo, Highland Park and East Lake often have to come down before something new can go up. We tear down the structure, break out and haul the concrete, clear the debris and leave a graded site ready for the next build. Our St. Elmo project started exactly this way: demolition first, then excavation, drainage and a new slab.
Whether your property is a wooded lot off Hixson Pike, an infill teardown in St. Elmo or a few acres out toward Enterprise South, we're ready to show up and walk it with you. Estimates are always free across Chattanooga and the surrounding Hamilton County area. Tell us about your project and we'll take it from bare ground to final grade.
Chattanooga is built where the Tennessee River bends around Moccasin Bend, hemmed in by Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain and Missionary Ridge, with Chickamauga Lake stretching north above Chickamauga Dam. Between steep ridge lots, flat valley floors and creek bottoms along South Chickamauga Creek, no two properties here clear or grade the same way. And because much of the valley sits on limestone karst, shallow rock and the odd sinkhole come with the territory.
The metro area pulled roughly 3,000 residential building permits in 2025, and a lot of that ground starts out wooded or overgrown: new subdivisions in East Brainerd, infill lots in Highland Park and Southside, and acreage off Hixson Pike and SR-153. Every one of those lots needs clearing and grading before a footer goes in, and properties outside the sewer lines in unincorporated Hamilton County need a new septic system too. That's the work our land clearing services in Chattanooga are built around.
Boundless Excavation & Contracting is based in Birchwood, about 30 minutes up Highway 58, and Chattanooga is home turf. On a Southside lot of just over half an acre, we cleared the trees, graded the lot, built the driveway, trenched every utility to the house and set the foundation footers. In St. Elmo, we handled demolition, excavation, three French drains, a retaining wall, a garage slab and final grading. One crew, start to finish.
Chattanooga ground has its own rules. The valley floor sits on limestone karst, so we watch for shallow rock and voids when we dig footers or set a septic tank. The red clay holds water and turns slick after a storm. Lots on the flanks of Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain come with steep grades and exposed rock. Parcels near the Tennessee River and South Chickamauga Creek can sit in the floodplain and draw extra review before any dirt moves.
Our crews roll in from Birchwood on Highway 58 past Harrison Bay, then fan out across town: SR-153 and Hixson Pike up to Hixson and Red Bank, I-75 down to East Brainerd, I-24 west to Lookout Valley and Tiftonia, and US-27 to North Shore and Riverview. Knowing those routes means we show up on time with the right machine on the trailer.
The work changes by neighborhood. In Southside and St. Elmo, it's tight infill lots, teardowns and drainage fixes. Out in East Brainerd, it's new subdivisions and wooded acreage that needs clearing before the builder arrives. Around Enterprise South, where a roughly 6,000-acre industrial park and the Volkswagen plant sit beside the 2,800-acre Enterprise South Nature Park, commercial site work and larger clearing jobs are part of the mix.
Permits come with the job. Inside city limits, every new single-family home needs a City of Chattanooga Land Disturbing Permit. Anything over an acre needs the state's TDEC construction stormwater coverage first, and the site has to be stabilized within 15 days of final grade. Septic permits in the county run through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection. We plan around the seasons too: the kudzu comes back hard every summer, and wet winter clay means we schedule grading for the right weather window.
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 Chattanooga, from the neighborhoods along the Tennessee River up to Missionary Ridge and out to Lookout Valley, plus the Hamilton County communities in between. If you're within about 40 miles of our Birchwood base and on the Tennessee side of the line, we'll come walk your property.
It depends on the lot. Acreage, how thick the brush and timber are, slope, rock and whether the debris is mulched in place or hauled off all change the number. A flat, brushy lot in East Brainerd prices very differently from a steep, rocky lot below Missionary Ridge. We walk every property and give you a free, itemized estimate, with no guessing over the phone.
Forestry mulching uses a single machine with a mulching head to grind brush, vines and small trees into a layer of mulch right where they stand. There's no burning and no hauling, and the mulch helps hold soil on slopes. It's one of the fastest ways to knock back kudzu and privet on a Chattanooga lot. Cost depends on acreage, density and terrain, so we quote it after a free site visit.
Often, yes. Inside city limits, the City of Chattanooga requires a Land Disturbing Permit for every new single-family home, and erosion controls are required even on single lots. If more than an acre will be disturbed, the state's TDEC construction stormwater permit has to be in place first. Properties in unincorporated Hamilton County go through the county instead. We'll talk through what your project needs during the estimate.
Yes. New septic system installation is one of our core services. Hamilton County is one of Tennessee's contract counties, so new systems here are permitted through Hamilton County Groundwater Protection rather than straight through the state. Once the permit and layout are approved, we excavate, set the tank, install the drain field and grade the area back. Most septic work around Chattanooga is in the unsewered parts of the county, like Middle Valley and Harrison.
Yes. Steep, rocky ridge lots are a big part of building in Chattanooga. On slopes along Missionary Ridge and below Lookout Mountain and Signal 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. Forestry mulching is often the best way to clear a slope because the mulch protects the soil.
We do. Our crews work across the whole city, including Hixson, North Shore, Highland Park, Southside, St. Elmo, East Brainerd and Lookout Valley, plus nearby Red Bank, East Ridge, Ooltewah and Harrison. We come from Birchwood, so the north and east sides of town are especially quick for us to reach.
Late fall and winter are great for clearing. The kudzu and undergrowth die back, so we can see the ground, and you'll be ready to build in spring. We do watch the weather, since Chattanooga's red clay gets slick after heavy rain, and we schedule grading for drier windows. Booking in the off-season usually means a faster start date, too.
