Category: Footing

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New Sand Footing Installed at an Indoor Horse Arena in Franktown, CO

Dirt Dogs Excavating recently installed a new sand footing at a real nice indoor horse arena in Franktown, Colorado. This indoor arena was about 80′ x 120′. The think about equestrians is they love to have a super level and smooth footing surface to ride around on. Rumor has it the horses enjoy it even more!

Just a little footnote:
Its impossible to tell from our “after” photo but if there was a “before” photo it would have looked more like a Monster truck race that was run on the moon. The surface was a filthy mess! The riders weren’t happy – the horses weren’t happy – even the barn didn’t seem happy.

That’s when Dirt Dogs came to the rescue!
First – we scrapped off the old sand and put it in a pile so the owner could recycle it into some other landscaping project. Then, after leveling off the sub-base, we brought in truckload after truckload of brand new, beautiful sand. We covered the entire surface with about 2.5 inches of sand and laser leveled it perfectly smooth – as you can see in the photo. This Franktown horse arena took about 4 days of work but when it was done everyone was happy!

Most of the time we’re used to working outdoors – sometimes in miserably bad weather – so it was really nice to enjoy the comforts of the indoors while we worked! But most important – the owner was happy to giddy-up again – while we drove off into the sunset.

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Installing a School Running Track in Arvada, CO

Dirt Dogs can handle any kind of earth moving and grading project. Recently we took this worn-out school track surface and restored it to the original old school scoria footing. Scoria is a volcanic rock/sand like product that the old running tracks used to be made of. They still use scoria on warning tracks in professional baseball fields too.

We enjoyed working at a school and making grading this running track so it was perfectly smooth and level. Dirt Dogs hates to brag but you’ll be hard pressed to find a prettier running track than the one we just finished!

After the job was done we took our whole crew and did a footrace around the track 4 times to see if we could break the 4 minute mile – like in our younger days. Unfortunately we’ve slowed down quite a bit due to our preference to ride around all day in tractors and trucks instead of running around like a bunch of kids.

Bottom line. If your school needs some earth moved and graded for a football field, baseball field, parking lot or track surface – just give us a call! We’ll do such a great job that you’ll want to give us an A+ when we’re done!

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New Foundation Excavation in Parker, CO

Dirt Dogs  Excavating is hard at work finishing up another foundation excavation project for a new home in Parker, Colorado. We really are the hands-down local foundation excavation experts! This beauty of a foundation is about 1500 ft². In case you’re curious, we’ve moved a mountain of dirt and dug hundreds of foundations over our many years in business AND we’re busy year round. So don’t be afraid to call us in the winter! As you can see in this photo we have a couple tractors hard at work under the beautiful blue Colorado skies in March. We make sure the foundations we dig are precise and picture perfect to make it easier for the concrete crew to come in and do their job. Typically we’ll come back in to add a driveway, do the finish grade once the foundation is poured and most of the house is underway. We work just about all year long – unless there’s a blizzard or its pouring cats and dogs. It should be mentioned that if you need some earth moved or a new foundation for and addition or new home…give us a ring!

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Laser Leveled Horse Arena Footing

To be honest, Dirt Dogs Excavation is your horse area expert up and down the front range of Colorado. One thing we specialize in is repairing existing horse arenas by coming in and laser leveling the footing so the arena is just like new. Did we say … laser leveling? Yep! Sounds high-tech…and it is! Thanks to our smart tech we can perfectly smooth off the footing to your horse arena. It will be so nice that your horse will want to kiss you on the mouth. (Really! But don’t do that…really.) As you can see in this photo we did wonderful work on this  large horse arena in Colorado Springs.  The owner was so excited that right after we finished the job she  thanks us and hopped in her tractor (with a big smile on her face) and started scarifying the surface while her horses watched eagerly.

Of course, if you want a new horse arena or need to repair and/or upgrade your existing arena – give us a call and we’ll take care of you!

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Finish Grade Excavation for a New Home in Elizabeth

Dirt Dogs Excavation is proud to show you the finished grade work we recently completed for an amazingly beautiful new luxury home in Elizabeth, Colorado.  We also excavated the foundation for this home about 9 months previously….
as you can see below.
This is a super nice 6000 sq. ft. custom home with views that go for miles in all directions.  (Of course it’s hard for most people take their eyes off the view of all that beautiful dirt but yep…I’ll give them credit, that is a nice looking house too.)
Since you asked…this finish grade work took us just a couple days and is now ready for the landscapers to roll in and plunk down their sod, plants and retaining walls galore. And last of all, we’ll be installing a picture perfect driveway in a couple weeks. (We’ll keep you posted.) And  as usual the proud owner of this home is tickled pink about how great a job we’ve done.
Well…we hate to brag but if you want the best darn local company in the earth moving business to take care of dirt…get in touch and we’ll move the earth to do the job right!
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RV Park

 Excavating an RV Park in Elizabeth, CO

Need a place to store your Recreational Vehicle in Colorado? Dirt Dogs Excavating  is creating five acres of RV heaven out here in Elizabeth, Colorado. Seen from the air out excavation project gives you a birds eye view of the project. There’s a good size building which will be built – 330 ft by 80 ft for indoor storage which will hold about 32 RV units. That building will be placed in the center of the light area. Outdoor storage is the red area that is just road base.  Once again Dirt Dogs Excavating is moving the earth and making the world a better place for people with dreams of building businesses and homeowners wanting to improve their property!

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RV Storage Excavation in Elizabeth, CO

Once again Dirt Dogs Excavating is working on another huge excavation project in Elizabeth, Colorado. We are moving the earth for a large indoor facility that will be able to house 32 RV units. RV means “recreational vehicles” in case you’re wondering. By-the-way…this is a “cut-to-fill” earth moving project. Cut-to-fill is where we remove (or cut) the earth in places where the land is elevated above the desired height and then moving it down to areas where the ground level. This is a great way to leverage the land resources that already exist on site. Just a footnote…the phrase: “cut and fill” excavation is also known as excavation and embankment. In this photo we are spreading topsoil on the exterior slopes. If you look closely, you can see our talented men (smiling for the camera) and machines  moving A LOT of dirt.  What? You can’t see our handsome faces? Shoot! We’ll try to zoom in closer next time for that.

After 8 weeks our brave and talented men have moved approximately 125,000 cubic yards of dirt on this project so far. (In case you’re curious, that’s about the size of a small island in the Pacific – but without the ocean.) We’ve still got about 4 more weeks of earth moving to get this beautiful ground in shape. Also, you can see the pad we’ve created for the building (in the light sandy area) as well as some of the grading we’ve done around the pad which is so pretty it brings tears to my eyes just looking at it.

Well, we’ll have another update or 2 on this excavating and grading project so sit tight. The next photos we’ll shot from our new drone. (As long as we don’t crash land it into a tree…)

Don’t forget to call Dirt Dogs Excavation if you need some earth moved and some dirt graded. We’ve got oodles of references we can share from clients all over Franktown, Douglas County, Elizabeth and lots of other places nearby!

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Horse Arena Sand

This is the first load of six to of washed arena sand to be installed on an indoor horse arena in Franktown, Colorado. Early last year there was nothing here but rocks and bare ground just begging for a beautiful commercial horse barn to be built. We excavated the site for the barn pad to start off. Then, after the arena was built we brought in clay for the sub-base, leveled it perfectly (as usual) and then drum rolled it so flat you could play pool on it. Now, came the fun part…we brought in 6 loads of washed arena sand – via a side dump truck (you see in the photo). Each load of this sand weighs 23 tons so that’s a total of 138 tons of sand. For the final touch, we smoothed this sand over the arena using our famous laser-leveling technology.

Was the owner happy did you ask? He did 23 cartwheels and a back flip – one after the other! Just kidding. But he was VERY happy with us and if you want a reference from him or other clients of ours just give Dirt Dogs Excavation a call and we’ll load you up with lots of amazing references from clients all over Franktown, Douglas County, Elizabeth and lots of other places nearby!

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Finishing off the Horse Arena Footing

We just finished off a beautiful horse arena in Douglas County, Colorado by adding  2 1/2 inches of sand footing spread evenly over the clay Sub-base. The arena is about 75′ x 175′ and is going to make a couple horses happier than most people as they ride around inside on the perfect footing we just laid down. We have been working on this horse arena for some time doing excavation finish work on the outside plus laying down the clay sub base. The clay is great for a horse arena because we’ll laser level it so its perfectly flat and over time the clay will pack down hard and retain its flat shape. We trucked in 175 tons of sand and smoothed it all perfectly to create the beautifully finished riding surface you see in the photo.

Yes, yes…we know the horses will love it but most of all the horse owner loves it which keeps us in business.  If you happen to have horses that might need some ground in your horse arena that’s foot friendly…give Dirt Dogs Excavating a call!

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Horse Arena Footing

When the owner of this top end horse arena in Douglas County, Colorado needed a clay sub-base footing installed. Guess who he called? Dirt Dogs Excavating, Grading and Earth Moving…that’s us!  Did you know…A “perfect” riding surface (or footing) should be cushioned, provide traction, and be not too slick or dusty, not overly abrasive to horse hooves and easy to maintain. There are a number of footing surfaces and solutions available and every cowboy (and cowgirl) can get what they want AND get our professional advice when they work with us!

But back to this beautiful horse arena job…the owner knew  we had great recommendations and reviews but when combined with the fact that we had already done an excellent job finish grading his exterior…we were a natural fit! Notice how level and smooth the inside of his beautiful horse arena is. In case you’re curious, we laser leveled it perfectly flat and drum rolled in for compaction. This step is the final step before we install the sand footing. We only use a clay sub-base on indoor arenas. We were told his horse started to cry tears of joy because it was so happy with our wonderful work! Giddy up and give us a call when you’re ready to get your horse arena in gear and in top shape…we’ve got the technology and many years of experience you can trust to do the job right!