05/07/2026
To whom it may concern,
Just because it's sunny today and it rained yesterday, does not mean that the ground miraculously dried up and we can get to work on your projects. When it rains 6 out of 7 days a week, the ground becomes saturated. It may come as a shock to some but as a grading and excavation company, we're heavily affected by rain. Most of our work is finish work and if it's muddy, that negatively affects the quality of the work. We don't want to make a mess. We don't want to track mud up and down the roads you and your neighbors drive on. Sure, it can be cleaned up but we're going to charge for things like that. We can also utilize access mats, which we have, but they also come at a cost. None of what we do is cheap, we're not running a charity and we can't stay in business long making bad decisions that cost us time and money. We want to work, rain days are not profitable for us, it's hard on the schedule and people become frustrated when we keep delaying start dates. We typically run a back log of 2-3 months of scheduled work. This means that if you agree to the terms and pricing of the project today, you won't see us for a few months. You're put on the schedule and all the work that was agreed to months before is being accomplished in the meantime. Now add in rain delays and it compounds the schedule. If each project has one lost day and there are 8 projects ahead of you, we are 8 days behind schedule. Most contractors run like this, with a schedule and a pile of scheduled work. We're not like a pizza place, you don't call and get pizza in a few minutes. Construction doesn't typically work like that. We can import materials and fix driveways, we can brush hog and clear, we can do preliminary excavation in the rain, but finishing things, not so much, well, not without a bunch of added costs. We present this to every customer when they're feeling frisky about getting going sooner, we can provide a price to do it now when they want, OR we can provide a price when it fits the schedule and the conditions allow. Or, they can find someone else. More often than not, they patiently wait and we take care of them when the time comes.
Thanks,
A grading and excavation contractor trying to survive another extremely wet spring.
