Bobcat and mini excavator work in Fallbrook costs $150 per hour with a 4-hour minimum, operator, fuel and delivery included anywhere in 92028. We are based here, so there is no travel charge and most jobs are booked within the week. Grading, fire clearance, trenching, driveway repair, drainage and concrete removal are the calls we take most.
Fallbrook is where the machines live. Oscar grew up here working on his father's equipment, and the T300 and the excavator are parked a few minutes from Mission Road, which is why a Fallbrook job gets scheduled faster and costs less in hours than anywhere else we work. We know the ground, the roads, the fire district and the yards that deliver base rock on short notice.
The work in Fallbrook is shaped by the land. The town sits on rolling granite hills between Camp Pendleton and the Riverside County line, cut up by the Santa Margarita River to the north and Live Oak Creek through the middle, with avocado and citrus groves on every slope that could hold a tree. Lots are big, driveways are long, roads are private and nothing is flat. That is skid steer and excavator country.
In a normal week we grade a pad for a shed or an ADU off Reche Road, cut defensible space on a lot up Rainbow Valley Boulevard, trench a water line to a barn on Olive Hill Road, regrade a washed-out driveway in De Luz, and break out a cracked patio in the Fallbrook village before a landscaper pours pavers. The jobs change with the season; the machines do not.
The ground in Fallbrook
Fallbrook soil is decomposed granite, DG, over fractured granite bedrock, with pockets of clay in the valley bottoms and boulders anywhere north of town. DG grades beautifully when damp, packs hard enough to hold a vertical cut, and turns to dust in August and to soup in a February storm. It drains well until it is compacted, which most yards are, so drainage problems are common and grading usually fixes them.
Slopes are the rule. The old grove roads were cut at grades a truck can barely climb, the house pads were carved into hillsides in the 1970s and 1980s, and the cut slopes behind them are starting to let go. We run a tracked loader instead of a wheeled one because of that ground: tracks hold on a slope, float on soft DG and leave the yard in better shape.
What we do most in Fallbrook
Pad grading for sheds, barns, workshops and ADUs
Fallbrook's large lots and the state ADU rules mean a lot of new pads cut into old grove slopes. We rough-grade to the plan so the foundation contractor can form the next day.
Defensible space and weed abatement
The whole town is in the State Responsibility Area. North County Fire inspects every spring, and the Lilac and Rice fires are recent memory. We cut the 100-foot zone with the brush cutter in April and May.
Dead avocado grove removal
Water prices and root rot have killed groves all over Fallbrook. We cut the trees, pull the stumps with the excavator and grade the ground for pasture, replanting or a pad.
Trenching to wells, barns, gates and ADUs
Long private runs across DG and through groves. We trench to the depth your plumber or electrician specifies and backfill after the inspection.
Dirt driveway and private road grading
De Luz, Rainbow Valley, Via Monserate and the grove roads are mostly dirt and mostly private. We regrade, crown, ditch and spread road base, often for several neighbors at once.
Drainage, French drains and erosion repair
Winter storms send water down the hillsides into garages and across pads. We cut swales, install French drains and rebuild the slopes that slid.
Roads and places we know
If your property is on or near one of these, we have probably been on it.
- Mission Road
- South Main Avenue
- Reche Road
- Live Oak Park Road
- Olive Hill Road
- Gird Road
- Via Monserate
- Rainbow Valley Boulevard
- De Luz Road
- Stage Coach Lane
- Winterwarm Drive
- Highway 76
- Interstate 15
- Fallbrook village and Main Avenue
- Live Oak County Park
- Los Jilgueros Preserve
- Santa Margarita River Trail
- Fallbrook High School
- Pala Mesa
- Camp Pendleton's east gate
- the Riverside County line at Rainbow
Permits in Fallbrook
Fallbrook is unincorporated, so permits come from County of San Diego Planning and Development Services, not a city hall. Most of what we do needs none: yard and shed pads, driveway regrading, drainage on your own lot, trenching, patio and shed removal. A grading permit generally applies above 200 cubic yards of cut and fill, or with deep cuts, or near a watercourse, and a demolition permit applies to permitted structures with utilities. We tell you when a job looks like it crosses one of those lines.