Clearing and grubbing, demolition where something is coming down, topsoil stripping, cut and fill to design grade, a building pad compacted in lifts, drainage grading with culverts where needed, utility trenching, and final grading. The written scope lists each phase, and what is excluded, by name.
More detail
Site preparation is everything that happens between raw land and a buildable pad, and a complete scope reads in construction order. Clearing and grubbing: vegetation, stumps, and root systems out of the work area, cleared to pasture standard outside the pad and to bare, organic-free earth inside it. Demolition: old structures, slabs, and fences removed and hauled, with old concrete crushed for reuse as base material where it makes sense. Earthwork: topsoil stripped and stockpiled for reuse, the site cut and filled to the design elevations, and the building pad itself built in moisture-conditioned, compacted lifts to the dimension and elevation the foundation plan calls for, with density testing on engineered projects and a proof roll on all of them. Drainage: the grading plan moves water around the pad and away from the future structure, with swales, bar ditches, and culverts sized for the site, because on Blackland clay the water arrives fast once the ground is wet. Trenching: water, power, and septic or sewer runs cut, bedded, and backfilled to the utility's spec, before the pad is finished rather than through it. Final grading: finished contours, topsoil respread, site left drainable. The usual exclusions, stated plainly in the scope: the utility providers' own connections, the septic system itself where a licensed installer's permit governs it, and anything inside the foundation contract when another party holds it.