Hiring an excavation contractor —
7 questions before you sign.

1. "Are you licensed, bonded, and insured? What's your CCB number?"

In Oregon, dirt-work above modest dollar thresholds requires Construction Contractors Board (CCB) licensing. The license number should appear on the contractor's website, business card, truck, and quote. You can — and should — look it up at the Oregon CCB website to verify it's active, not expired, and has no major complaints.

What a good answer sounds like: "Oregon CCB #197503, bonded for $20,000, $1M general liability through [carrier]. Happy to send proof of insurance — I can name your property as additional insured for the duration of the job if you want."

What to walk away from: evasion, "I work as a sub for someone licensed," handwritten quotes with no business name, or any version of "we don't really do that paperwork." If something goes wrong on an unlicensed job — equipment damage, injury, drainage flooding the neighbor's basement — you're the one paying.

2. "Will you walk the property before quoting?"

Dirt work is full of unknowns. Soil type, slope, hidden obstacles, drainage realities, access — none of these come through in a phone call or a satellite photo. A contractor who quotes from photos alone is guessing. The guess is usually low (to win the job) and then becomes a series of change orders once they see what's actually there.

What a good answer sounds like: "Yes — I come out, walk the lot, take notes, and get back to you with a written quote within a few days. The walk-through is free."

What to walk away from: "Just send me a photo and I'll tell you the price." Maybe for a tiny job. Definitely not for anything multi-day or multi-thousand-dollar.

3. "Can you give me an itemized written quote?"

"$5,000" is a number. "$5,000 — itemized as: $1,200 brush clearing, $1,800 stump pulls, $1,500 grading, $500 culvert install" is a quote. The second one tells you what you're paying for, where the contractor expects time to go, and gives you something to compare across bids.

What a good answer sounds like: "Every quote is written, itemized, and honored. The number on the quote is the number you pay unless we hit something genuinely unexpected — and if that happens, I call before doing any work that changes the scope."

What to walk away from: a one-line bid with no breakdown, "we'll figure it out as we go," or quotes that arrive verbally only.

4. "Who actually does the work — you, an employee, or a sub?"

This matters more than people think. With owner-operated outfits, the person who walks the property and writes the quote is the same person who runs the equipment. The accountability is direct. With larger companies that sub the work out, the operator showing up may have never seen your property until the day they arrive — and may not understand the scope as you discussed it.

Neither model is automatically wrong. Big companies have advantages on big jobs. Owner-operators have advantages on small-to-medium ones. But you should know which you're hiring before you sign.

What a good answer sounds like (owner-operator): "It's me on the machine. I quote it, I run it, I'm there start to finish."

What a good answer sounds like (larger outfit): "We have a crew of four. The lead operator on your job will be [name], and I'll be on site for the first day to walk through scope with them and you."

What to walk away from: evasion, vague answers about "our team," or finding out on day one that the person who quoted you isn't the person doing the work and never communicated the scope to them.

5. "What happens if you hit something unexpected?"

Brush hides things. Old fence wire, irrigation lines, septic lids, hidden stumps, drain tile, embedded rocks. A buried propane line that wasn't on any record. Soft soil that turns to soup. The question isn't whether something unexpected will come up — it's how the contractor handles it when it does.

What a good answer sounds like: "If we hit something that changes the scope, I stop, call you, explain what we found, and we agree on a path forward before any change-order work happens. Nothing gets billed extra without your sign-off."

What to walk away from: "Eh, we'll deal with it" or "we'll add it to the bill at the end." Both are paths to expensive surprises.

6. "Can I see references or recent work?"

Photos of finished jobs are easy to fake — every contractor's website has them. References are harder. A contractor with happy customers can give you 2–3 names of recent local jobs whose owners will pick up the phone. Even better: a finished job nearby you can drive past.

What a good answer sounds like: "Sure — I just finished a driveway rescue out toward Crawfordsville and a brush clearing job in Tangent last month. Both customers said I could share their numbers. Want me to text them to you?"

What to walk away from: "All my customers prefer privacy" (translation: I don't have references). "Check my Google reviews" — fine but reviews are easier to game than a real conversation with a recent customer.

7. "What's your schedule and how do you handle weather?"

The Willamette Valley's climate is hard on dirt work. Wet ground in fall and winter limits what equipment can do without leaving ruts. Hot dry windows in summer trigger ODF restrictions on industrial brush operations. Both directions of the calendar have constraints.

A contractor who's been at it for a few years has a coherent answer about how they handle weather: when they cancel, when they reschedule, who eats the cost of weather delays, what the latest start they can do for a fall job is.

What a good answer sounds like: "Right now I'm booking 2–3 weeks out. If we get a stretch of rain that pushes your start, I call you the day before. We don't tear up a property when it's too wet — and you're not paying for hours we didn't work."

What to walk away from: "We work through any weather" (red flag — they'll damage your property). "We'll figure that out when we get there" (red flag — no plan).

The bonus question: "What don't you do?"

The single most useful filter for finding a contractor who'll do quality work is asking what they won't take. A contractor who tells you straight that "I don't do hay-cut work — call so-and-so for that" or "I don't tear down houses, just outbuildings" or "septic installs need a licensed installer, I just dig the hole" is telling you they understand the limits of their machine, their license, and their experience.

The contractor who will quote anything is the one who'll learn the hard way on your property. The one who points you to a different contractor for the wrong fit is the one to hire when the work is a fit.

The price comparison rule

After you have answers to all seven (or eight) questions, then compare prices — but compare on like-for-like scope. The lowest bid for a vague scope is rarely actually the lowest cost; the difference shows up as change orders, missing line items, or work the customer didn't realize wasn't included.

A useful rule: if one bid is dramatically lower than the others, ask what's not included. If one bid is dramatically higher, ask what's specifically more involved. The middle bid is usually the most honest — but only after you've checked it against the seven questions above.

The bottom line

Hiring an excavation or dirt-work contractor is hiring trust as much as a machine. The seven questions above filter for honest, accountable, experienced operators — and screen out the ones who win jobs on price and lose money on quality. They take ten minutes per quote to ask. They save thousands on the wrong contractor.

If you're collecting bids on a Linn County or mid-Willamette Valley job, we'd love to be one of them. We're licensed (Oregon CCB #197503), bonded, insured, owner-operated, and we walk every property before quoting. See what we do across all our services or request a walkthrough.