Lot clearing, forestry mulching, new septic installs and complete site work for homeowners and builders from North Cleveland and Paul Huff Parkway to the farm country around Hopewell and Tasso, with crews running in from Birchwood down Highway 60.
When Josiah Sims was nine, his father rented a Cat 977L to clear ground for the family's new home. It only took a few days before Josiah had taken over the finish grading himself. In the years since, he has led crews, welded and fabricated transit buses, built additions and poured concrete, and today he's still the one running site work on the job.
Ridge slopes, creek bottoms, slick clay and a permit process that changes at the city line. We plan for all of it, from Candies Creek Ridge to the Hiwassee River, so your estimate reflects what's actually under the surface and who has to sign off before work starts.
We're based in Birchwood, roughly 25 miles up Highway 60, so Cleveland jobs are close to home for us. That keeps travel time down and means we can get back on your site quickly when the weather breaks.
Your project won't sit in line behind another customer's, since one crew with its own equipment handles land clearing and forestry mulching while a separate crew and set of machines handles new septic installs. We walk your property and give you a straight, free estimate, and financing is available through our quoting platform for homeowners who'd rather spread out the cost.
Every service on our menu is available inside Cleveland city limits and across unincorporated Bradley County. Whether it's a single building lot in North Cleveland or a few overgrown acres off Harrison Pike, one call gets you a crew that can clear it, prep it and finish it.
There's a lot of Bradley County ground that's been left to go back to woods: old pasture out around Tasso and Black Fox, fence rows grown thick with privet and briars, and wooded lots on the slopes of Candies Creek Ridge. Brush, underbrush and small timber come out first, and the debris is either mulched on site or hauled away, leaving ground you can actually work. Your lot comes out ready for the surveyor, the soil evaluation or the builder, whether it's one subdivision lot or a larger tract outside town.
Forestry mulching grinds brush and saplings where they stand, so there are no burn piles and no truckloads of debris to haul off. The mulch layer left behind covers bare soil, which matters on ridge-side lots and on ground that drains toward South Mouse Creek and Candies Creek. Selective thinning lets you open up a wooded Cleveland lot while keeping the good hardwoods you want to build around.
Cleveland Utilities sewers much of the city, but plenty of homesites out in Hopewell, McDonald, Tasso and the rest of unincorporated Bradley County depend on septic. Bradley County isn't one of Tennessee's contract counties, so new systems here are permitted through TDEC's Chattanooga Environmental Field Office, and the approved layout comes down to the soil evaluation and the lot's slope. Our septic work centers on two jobs, installing new systems for homes and commercial buildings and replacing worn-out systems in full, and every one follows the layout on the approved permit.
Site work is the core of our business, and it covers the whole sequence on a lot, from clearing and rough grading to digging and pouring concrete footings, backfilling, retaining walls and a dressed final grade. On sloped lots along Candies Creek Ridge and Blue Springs Ridge, cut and fill plus a retaining wall is often what makes a pad buildable. Inside city limits, grading runs through the City of Cleveland Stormwater Division, and out in the county it runs through the Bradley County Stormwater Department, so we set erosion controls and stabilize the site to match whichever one has your lot.
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 meter or tap to the foundation. On new homesites off Paul Huff Parkway and Georgetown Road, that usually means running service from the street to the house before the footers go in. Rock can turn up a couple of feet down on the ridge lots, and we're equipped to dig through it. We call 811 before every dig.
Worn-out houses, detached garages and cracked slabs in older parts of town like North Cleveland, Fairview and Blythe Oldfield sometimes have to come down before something new can go up. The building comes down, the concrete gets broken up and hauled off and the debris is cleared, so what's left is a graded site ready for whatever gets built next. Old barns, sheds and outbuildings on farm ground out toward Charleston get the same treatment.
Whether your property is a wooded lot off Paul Huff Parkway, a new homesite out in Hopewell or a few acres of old pasture toward Charleston, we're ready to show up and walk it with you. Estimates are always free across Cleveland and the rest of Bradley County. Share the details of your project, whether it's a lot in Windwood or acreage near Prospect, and we'll carry it from raw ground through finished grade.
Cleveland is laid out across East Tennessee's ridge-and-valley country, where Candies Creek Ridge, Lead Mine Ridge and Blue Springs Ridge run north-northeast through town and Candies Creek and South Mouse Creek drain the valleys in between. Elevations inside the city swing from just under 700 feet to nearly 1,200, and the Hiwassee River marks the county's northern edge up at Charleston. With ridge slopes, creek bottoms and open valley farmland all within a few miles, no two Cleveland lots clear or grade quite the same way.
Bradley County is building fast. Builders pulled permits for 788 new housing structures in Bradley County in 2025, up from 500 in 2020, and a lot of that ground starts out wooded, grown up or in old pasture: new homesites off Paul Huff Parkway and Georgetown Road, acreage out toward Hopewell and McDonald, and commercial pads near APD-40 and the I-75 exits. Every one of those lots needs clearing and grading before a footer goes in, and homesites outside the sewer lines need a new septic system too. That's the work our land clearing services in Cleveland are built around.
Boundless Excavation & Contracting is based in Birchwood, roughly 25 miles up Highway 60 through Georgetown and Hopewell, so Cleveland is a straight shot for our trucks and trailers. Most of our finished work so far has been on the Hamilton County side around Chattanooga, and we bring the same one-crew approach across the county line: clearing, grading, footers, utilities and final grade, with nobody handing your job off halfway through.
Cleveland ground can change in a few hundred yards. The town is laid across parallel ridges, Candies Creek Ridge, Lead Mine Ridge and Blue Springs Ridge, with creek bottoms along Candies Creek and South Mouse Creek in between, so one lot can be a steep, rocky slope and the next a soft, wet bottom. The clay holds water and turns slick after a storm. Bradley County's own land disturbance policy calls out work that could affect sinkholes, creeks or existing drainage, and parcels near the Hiwassee River and the creek floodplains get a closer look before any dirt moves.
Our crews come down Highway 60 from Birchwood through Georgetown and Hopewell, pick up Georgetown Road at Paul Huff Parkway, then fan out across town: APD-40 around the east side, Keith Street and 25th Street through the middle, US-11 north toward Charleston and southwest toward McDonald, US-64 east toward Ocoee, and Harrison Pike over Candies Creek Ridge to the west side. Because we already know our way around Bradley County, we arrive when we said we would, with the machine your job calls for already loaded.
The work changes across the county. Off Paul Huff Parkway and around neighborhoods like Laurel Ridge and Rolling Hills, it's homesites and infill lots that need clearing, a pad and utilities. Out in Hopewell, Tasso and Black Fox, it's acreage, grown-up pasture and new homes on septic. And with industry like the Whirlpool plant on Benton Pike and Wacker's roughly 544-acre polysilicon site in Charleston, commercial site prep is part of the mix too.
Permits come with the job, and in Cleveland it matters which side of the city line you're on. Inside city limits, the City of Cleveland Stormwater Division handles grading and stormwater, and because Cleveland has been a TDEC Qualified Local Program since August 2017, projects disturbing more than an acre get their construction stormwater coverage from the city instead of the state. In unincorporated Bradley County, the Bradley County Stormwater Department issues a Land Disturbance/Grading Permit, home sites under an acre need an approved site sketch, and anything an acre or larger, or near a stream, also goes to TDEC. New septic systems run through TDEC's Chattanooga Environmental Field Office. We plan around the seasons too: 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 Cleveland, from the neighborhoods along South Mouse Creek out over Candies Creek Ridge and north to the Hiwassee River, plus the Bradley County communities in between. If you're within about 40 miles of our Birchwood base and on the Tennessee side of the state line, we'll come walk your property.
It depends on the property. The price moves with several things: how many acres you have, how dense the brush and timber are, the slope, any rock, and whether you want the debris mulched on site or hauled away. A flat, brushy pasture out near Black Fox prices very differently from a steep, wooded lot on Candies Creek Ridge. Before we put a number on it, we come out and walk the land, then hand you a free, itemized estimate instead of a guess over the phone.
With forestry mulching, one machine fitted with a mulching head grinds brush, vines and small trees down where they stand, leaving a layer of mulch on the ground. There's no burning and no hauling, and the mulch helps hold soil on slopes and near creeks like South Mouse Creek. It's one of the fastest ways to reclaim overgrown pasture and fence rows around Bradley County. Since acreage, density and terrain all drive the cost, your quote comes after we've seen the ground on a free site visit.
Often, yes, and it depends on which side of the city line you're on. Inside city limits, grading and stormwater run through the City of Cleveland Stormwater Division, and because Cleveland is a TDEC Qualified Local Program, projects disturbing more than an acre get their state stormwater coverage from the city. In unincorporated areas, the Bradley County Stormwater Department issues a Land Disturbance/Grading Permit for building lots, and an acre or more, or work near a stream, also needs TDEC. When we come out for your estimate, we'll sort out with you which of those permits apply to your lot.
Yes. Putting in new septic systems is a central part of our business. Bradley County isn't a TDEC contract county, so new systems are permitted by the state through the Division of Water Resources' Chattanooga Environmental Field Office rather than a county office. After the permit and layout get the state's approval, our crew digs the site, sets the tank, lays the drain field and grades everything back. Most septic work around Cleveland is on homesites outside the sewer lines, in places like Hopewell, McDonald and Tasso.
Yes. Ridge lots are a big part of building in Cleveland. On slopes along Candies Creek Ridge, Lead Mine Ridge and Blue Springs Ridge, 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 until the site is stabilized.
We do. Our crews work across all of Cleveland, including North Cleveland, Fairview, Laurel Ridge and the neighborhoods off Paul Huff Parkway, plus Hopewell, Charleston, McDonald, Tasso and Black Fox. We come from Birchwood down Highway 60, so the north and west sides of the county are especially quick for us to reach.
For clearing, the cooler stretch from late fall through winter is hard to beat. The undergrowth dies back, so we can see the ground, and you'll be ready to build in spring. We do watch the weather, since Bradley County clay gets slick after heavy rain and the creek bottoms along Candies Creek stay wet, so we schedule grading for drier windows. There's a scheduling upside as well, since jobs booked during the slower months can usually get started sooner.
