Excavation & trenching
We dig our own trenches
Power in from the street. A line across the yard to a shop. A trench for the line set on a heat pump. On most jobs that digging belongs to somebody else, and that is where the weeks go. We own the excavator and run it ourselves.
Why it matters
The part that gets hired out
Read what most electrical and heating companies around here list, and the digging is not on it.
The wiring is theirs. The heat pump is theirs. The trench between the street and the meter, or the meter and the shop, goes to an excavator with his own calendar.
That handoff is where a two-day job turns into a three-week one. The digger has Thursday open and the electrician does not, so the trench waits on whichever of them is free. Nobody owns the gap, so nobody closes it.
We hold Washington contractor registration SUNVIVE776ML and residential electrical licence SUNVIVE845MO, and the machine in the yard is ours. The trench gets opened when the wire is ready to go in it, and closed when the work is done.
What we dig
The work, plainly
The excavation we do is the excavation our own jobs need. It goes with the wiring, not instead of it.
- Power brought in from the street
- Trenching to shops, greenhouses and septic
- Conduit runs
- Meter sets
- Backfill
On site
From the street to the panel
A service entrance is a seam between trades. The utility brings power to a point. From there somebody has to dig, lay the conduit, set the meter and land the conductors on the panel.
When one company does all of it, there is nothing to coordinate. The trench is cut to the depth the conduit needs. The conduit is laid by the people who will pull the wire through it. The meter is set by the crew that wired what it feeds.
Then it gets backfilled, and that is the end of it.
Recent work
A shop, a greenhouse and two panels
One job that shows what the digging is actually for.
We trenched the electrical in from the street and set the meter remote. Then we trenched from the meter to the shop, and from the shop to the greenhouse, with conduit the whole way.
Inside the shop went two panels and a run of receptacles, including two welder receptacles. High-bay LED lighting overhead, security lights on the outside, and RV receptacles.
The digging, the conduit, the panels and the lighting were all the same crew. There was no week in the middle waiting on anybody.
Common questions
Before you call
Do you dig the trench yourselves, or hire it out?
We do it ourselves. We own the excavator and run it on the same job as the wiring. That is the reason this page exists: most electrical and heating companies have to subcontract the digging, and the schedule then belongs to whoever turns up last.
Can you bring power to a detached shop or a greenhouse?
Yes. Trench from the street or from the meter, conduit in the ground, a panel in the building, then the receptacles and lighting inside it. Shops, sheds, carports, greenhouses and septic systems are all work we do.
Does the trench get backfilled?
Yes. Backfill is part of the work, done by the same crew that opened the trench. We are not leaving an open ditch in your yard for somebody else to close.
Free estimate
Quote the digging with the wiring
Tell us what the job is and where the power has to come from. Estimates are free, and the trench is priced as part of the work rather than as somebody else’s invoice later.
- Mon–Fri 8am–5pm, weekends by phone
- Free estimates
- 10% off for military and seniors
- Financing available through Wisetack
- All of Pierce County, plus parts of Thurston and King
- Licensed, bonded and insured since 2016