Grading Contractor — Rough & Finish Grade
Grading sets the foundation for everything built on top of it. Cadoava delivers GPS-accurate rough and finish grading for building pads, parking lots, roads, and lots across Utah County, the Heber Valley, and Park City — engineered compaction, correct slopes for drainage, and tolerances that keep the next trades on schedule.
Why Cadoava for Grading
GPS machine control and grade staking for accuracy to plan.
Engineered compaction in lifts, tested to spec.
Drainage and slope built correctly so water goes where it should.
Self-performed alongside our excavation and utility crews.
Our Process
Subgrade prep
Bring the site to subgrade and proof-roll for soft spots.
Rough grade
Shape pads, slopes, and drainage to engineered elevations.
Compaction & testing
Compact in lifts and verify density before finish.
Finish grade
Tighten to final tolerance, ready for concrete, paving, or landscape.
Building pad grading — what a finished pad has to hold
Pad grading is where a lot on paper becomes a place you can pour footings. The pad has to hit design elevation, hold compaction under the whole footprint, and shed water away from the building line from the first day — not after the landscaper shows up.
We cut and fill to the site plan, moisture-condition and compact in lifts, and leave a pad the concrete crew can shoot grades on without a single surprise.
Mass grading vs fine grading — what changes on the invoice
Mass grading moves the site: cutting the high ground, filling the low, balancing the dirt so as little as possible leaves on a truck. It is priced by volume and driven by the cut-fill balance. Fine grading finishes the site: the last tenths of a foot that put a pad, a road section, or a swale exactly on plan, priced by area.
A bid that blurs the two is a bid you can't check. Ours keeps them on separate lines so you can see where the money goes.
Grading tolerances we hold
Rough grade gets the site close; fine grade gets it right. We shoot grades with GPS machine control and check them the old way, with a rover and a level, before anyone pours on our work.
The tolerance we hold is the one your plans call for — pad, curb line, or swale — and we don't call a surface done until it checks.
What we bring to a Utah County pad
Grading rewards iron, and we own ours: a Komatsu D61PX dozer, a Bobcat E80 excavator with a fleet of minis behind it, a full-size grader for finish work, a water truck and sheepsfoot for compaction, and a screener for making usable material out of what the site gives us.
No waiting on a rental counter, no sub scheduling around another contractor's fleet. The crew that cuts your pad Monday is the same one that fine-grades it Thursday.
What Affects the Cost
Every project is different. These are the biggest factors that move the price on grading work — we'll walk you through yours in a free estimate.
- Site size and the precision/tolerance required.
- Soil type and required compaction effort.
- Import or export of material if the site doesn't balance.
- Drainage complexity and retaining requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between rough and finish grading?
Rough grading shapes the site to approximate elevations and drainage. Finish grading tightens everything to final tolerance for the surface that goes on top — concrete, asphalt, or landscape.
Why does compaction matter?
Poorly compacted fill settles, which cracks slabs and pavement and undermines foundations. Engineered compaction tested to spec prevents expensive failures later.