6 essential services only a groundworker provides

When you weigh up all the different jobs a groundworker does on a development it's easy to see why our team is usually the first to set foot on site and the last to leave. Our remit spans everything from getting the ground primed for excavation to those final finishing touches that make the new residential communities we help to build complete. So it's no wonder our tenure on our clients' projects is usually a year upwards.

Groundworks, contrary to what the name suggests, doesn't just involve work that happens below the soil's surface. We're also responsible for some of the essential infrastructure the public comes into contact with above ground too. Such as car parks, driveways and even green spaces on our clients' sites. Our groundworks services are far-reaching so our operatives are fully trained to undertake a number of the vital elements involved in transforming an empty plot of land into a thriving new residential development.

Here are just six of the groundworks jobs our Mackoy operatives provide as part of our groundworks infrastructure packages:

1. Site clearance

Before any actual building works can commence on site the first thing that needs to happen is for any existing vegetation to be stripped away. This is a process known as earthworks and on large development sites, like the ones our clients secure for their house building projects, this requires powerful excavation plant to undertake. Earthworks are always the first job our operatives are tasked with when we get to work on a new development. Taking the topsoil layer away, and providing a full muckaway service for any material waste we generate.

2. Laying foundations

No new building or structure can stand safely without the right foundations to root it to the ground, and that includes new residential dwellings. Our clients' site drawings are subject to local authority planning permission by the council, so it's vital that any foundations dug on site adhere to the spec of these plans exactly. We first measure out foundation lines using corner pegs and chalk markings to ensure locations are correct before we start excavating to the required depths. A process that's essential to keeping build times on schedule and houses positioned according to approved plans.

3. Installing drains

Drains are integral to transporting wastewater and foul water to a treatment plant for processing. They also ensure that land and water surrounding residential developments stays clean from contamination and doesn't pollute the environment. Groundworkers don't only dig the trenches for new drainpipes and other essential live services to sit in underground; they also lay the drain pipework too. Connecting each new home on our clients' developments to mainland sewer facilities.

4. Constructing roads

As well as digging the foundations for new homes, groundworkers also excavate the foundations for entire new road systems on our clients' developments too. Along with all the necessary 278 works required to connect the newly created roads to existing public highways. In fact, groundworkers do more than just dig the foundations for roads; our operatives deliver the entire finished product from start to finish. Infilling the foundations with appropriate sub structure stone and surfacing the road with asphalt or tarmac to achieve a smooth finish.

5. Pouring oversites

While the foundations of a house are often credited with helping to keep it stable, the oversites are equally important in giving a building's structure integrity. Oversites are a solid layer of watertight concrete that sits just beneath a property's finished floor. Before the oversites are poured the foundations are first filled in with hardcore or aggregate, a watertight membrane, and insulation. All of which will be sealed tight into place once the concrete layer solidifies on top. This process is an essential aspect of foundation finishing and yet another of the specialist services groundworkers provide on a development.

6. Retaining structures

If your development plans include underground rooms like a basement, or you're excavating a site that's significantly sloped and requires manmade elevations, you'll need a retaining structure. These types of dense gravity-defying wall come in all shapes and sizes, and because they're responsible for holding back thousands of cubic tonnes of soil their construction has to be exact to the calculation. Some types of retaining wall allow for drainage while others are 100% watertight, so building the right type of structure, in the right material, is essential in all cases. Something groundworkers know all about because they build these types of wall day in, day out.

The six services we've highlighted on this page aren't the sum of our entire groundworks offer at Mackoy. In total we provide around 40 essential groundworks and civil engineering services from landscaping and site inspections to CAD surveys, drain cleaning, beam & block flooring and much more besides. You can find more information about our services on our website as well as the in-house resource we have to complete our groundworks contracts to SAFEMARK, Chas and NHBC standards.

Categories: Services