Utah County
Excavation, Concrete & Retaining Walls — Alpine, UT
Alpine sits right against the mountains, and that's the whole story for sitework here: steep benches, big custom estate homes, and expansive clay soils that move if you don't grade, drain, and compact them correctly. Just up the road from our American Fork yard, Cadoava handles the excavation, retaining, concrete, and driveways that hillside Alpine homes demand.
Sitework built for Alpine
Foothill benches
Alpine builds on the bench, and the bench doesn't forgive careless sitework. Bench lots mean cut-and-fill pads, driveways that switch back to make grade, and retaining walls that are structural, not decorative. A walkout basement here is really a grading problem with a house on top — the cut has to hold, the fill has to compact, and the water coming off the mountain has to go around the house, not through it.
Expansive soils
Expansive clays run through much of Alpine — soil that swells when wet and shrinks when dry will move a slab, crack a foundation, and heave a driveway unless the subgrade is over-excavated, moisture-conditioned, and compacted to the geotech's spec. We build to the soils report. If there isn't one, we'll tell you to get one before we price the dirt, because guessing is how driveways end up replaced at year three.
Custom estate quality
Alpine's large custom homes expect precise, clean work — from the foundation excavation to the finished concrete driveway and flatwork. We self-perform all of it with our own crews and owned equipment, so the standard doesn't change between trades.
Tight access, close neighbors
Estate lots up the canyon roads mean narrow frontages, steep approaches, and neighbors close enough to care. Our fleet includes minis and compact machines sized for tight benches, and one crew handles the job start to finish — no rental-counter delays, no parade of subs.
Walls that make the pad
On an Alpine bench lot the wall is often the difference between a buildable pad and a slope. Under four feet we build segmental walls without engineering; over four feet we build to a stamped engineered design with geogrid and a full drainage package. Boulder walls — the Alpine look — we build with our own excavators and locally delivered rock.
What we focus on here: Retaining walls, excavation, concrete driveways and flatwork, grading, and foundations for Alpine's hillside custom homes.
What Alpine requires before you dig
Every rule and number below comes from Alpine's own code, fee schedule, or published guidance — each one linked. Last verified 2026-08-22.
Above 5,350 feet, hillside rules change everything else
Alpine's Hillside Protection Overlay kicks in at 5,350 feet mean sea level, tracked in the city's General Plan since 1997. Above that line, the standard 300-foot septic exemption no longer applies, so any hillside home must connect to Alpine City sewer regardless of distance from the existing line. Development above 5,350 feet must also fund all additional water infrastructure — piping, valves, pumps, and storage tanks, both on-site and off-site — and pay the cost of pumping water to the site. This is set out in Development Code §3.12.9.4.3(1)-(2).
Source: Alpine City Development CodeA Land Disturbance Permit is required for essentially every new home
Alpine requires a Land Disturbance Permit from the City Engineer for the construction of any single-family home, regardless of the size of the lot or the acreage disturbed. The same rule applies to borrow pits, earthen-material processing, parking lots, and commercial projects. The permit costs $300 and is credited toward the building permit. Excavating a lot before the permit is issued is prohibited. This is codified at Alpine City Code §14-404(1).
Source: Alpine City Code §14-404Cutting into an Alpine street costs a $20,000 bond before you start
Any excavation or cut into a paved city street or right-of-way in Alpine requires a Street Cut (Excavation) Permit backed by a $20,000 excavation bond. The fee is $300 plus $1.50 per square foot for pavement more than three years old, or $300 plus $3.00 per square foot for pavement three years old or newer. Contractors must call Blue Stakes 24 hours before cutting and separately notify the city's field engineering contact the day work begins. These figures come from the Consolidated Fee Schedule §F.3.
Source: Alpine City Consolidated Fee ScheduleAlpine's own slope numbers decide whether a lot is buildable
Alpine's Development Code defines buildable area as containing no natural slope of 20 percent or greater, and caps driveway slope at 12 percent with no cut or fill greater than five feet. In the CR-2000 zone, a lot with an average slope of 25 percent or more is not buildable at all. Inside the Hillside Protection Overlay, no development is allowed within 50 feet of any slope steeper than 40 percent or of a landslide-hazard area. These thresholds are set in Development Code §3.12.6.2 and §3.12.9.4.5.1.
Source: Alpine City Development CodeAlpine FAQs
Do you build retaining walls in Alpine?
Yes — Alpine's benched, hillside lots make retaining walls common. We build engineered concrete and segmental walls, drained correctly so they don't fail.
Why do Alpine driveways and foundations crack?
Usually the expansive clay soils. Without proper subgrade prep, drainage, and compaction, the soil moves and cracks slabs and foundations. We fix what's underneath so the concrete lasts.
Do I need a permit to grade or disturb land before building a home in Alpine?
Yes. Alpine requires a Land Disturbance Permit from the City Engineer for any single-family home construction, no matter how small the lot — it's a $300 application fee credited toward your building permit, and excavating before it's issued is prohibited under Alpine City Code §14-404. We pull this permit as part of our grading and excavation scope.
Building above 5,350 feet in Alpine — what changes for site work?
Once your lot sits above 5,350 feet, Alpine's Hillside Protection Overlay takes over: you must connect to city sewer no matter how far the line runs, and you're responsible for the water infrastructure to get there — piping, pumps, storage tanks, and the cost of pumping water to the site. We plan excavation and utility trenching around that requirement from the start.