Before you hire
Twelve questions to ask a grading contractor
Short answer
The most useful questions are about diagnosis and scope rather than price. Ask where the water will go, what is causing the problem, how the fill will be compacted, and what is excluded. A contractor who can answer those clearly is giving you an assessment. One who cannot is giving you a number.
Grading is unusually easy to do badly in a way that looks fine on the day. The surface can be raked smooth, the low spot can be filled, and everything can appear correct right up until the following spring, when uncompacted fill has slumped and you are back where you started.
That gap between how it looks and how it performs is why the questions below focus on method rather than appearance.
| Ask this | A good answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Where is the water going to go? | A good answerA specific answer naming a swale, a low point, the street or a lane. | A warning signVagueness. If nobody can say where the water ends up, the job has not been thought through. |
| What do you think is causing it? | A good answerA diagnosis of the cause: flat grade, settled backfill, blocked path, downspout discharge. | A warning signJumping straight to a product or a price without explaining the mechanism. |
| How will the fill be compacted? | A good answerPlaced in lifts with compaction between them, and a rough idea of lift thickness. | A warning signNo mention of compaction. This is the single most common corner cut. |
| What happens to my existing lawn? | A good answerClear statement of which areas are stripped, what is protected, and what the surface will be at the end. | A warning signAssuming sod is included, or assuming it is not, without saying which. |
| Is topsoil being imported or reused? | A good answerA direct answer, because it materially changes the price. | A warning signNot knowing. Material and haulage are a large share of many quotes. |
| How much fall will there be against the house? | A good answerA number, or a commitment to establish one on site. | A warning signNothing measurable. Grading is a numbers job, not an eyeballing job. |
| Could this be a foundation or drainage problem instead? | A good answerA willingness to say yes, and to tell you what would indicate it. | A warning signConfidence that regrading will definitely stop a basement leak, without having looked at the wall. |
| Does this affect my neighbours or need City involvement? | A good answerAwareness that lot drainage is regulated, and a recommendation to check when relevant. | A warning signDismissing the question entirely. |
| Are utility locates arranged before digging? | A good answerYes, as a matter of course, before machines arrive. | A warning signAny hesitation at all. |
| What settlement should I expect in the first year? | A good answerAn honest answer that some minor settlement is normal, and who handles a top-up. | A warning signA claim of zero settlement. It is not realistic. |
| What is specifically excluded from this quote? | A good answerA short, clear list. Exclusions are a sign of a thought-through scope. | A warning signNo exclusions at all, which usually means they have not been decided yet. |
| Are you insured for this work? | A good answerA straightforward yes and a willingness to provide confirmation. | A warning signDeflection or irritation at being asked. |
Why comparing totals is misleading
Two quotes for the same yard can differ substantially and both be honest, because they describe different work. One includes stripping sod, importing screened topsoil, compaction in lifts and reinstating turf. The other moves existing soil around and leaves a raked surface.
Before comparing numbers, line up the scope: area covered, soil imported or not, sod handling, compaction method, finished surface, and exclusions. It is common for the gap between two quotes to disappear entirely once you do.
The one question people forget
Where does the water go? It sounds obvious and it is skipped constantly. A yard can be regraded beautifully and still fail, because the water has been delivered to a place it cannot leave from.
If the answer is somewhere near the back fence or into that low area, keep going. Ask what happens once it gets there. On a lot with no viable outlet, that constraint shapes the whole job and needs to be on the table before work starts, not discovered afterwards.
What a written quote should contain
It does not need to be long. It needs to be specific enough that both parties would describe the job the same way six weeks later.
At minimum: the areas being worked on, what happens to existing sod and landscaping, whether soil is imported and roughly how much, how fill is compacted, where water will discharge, what the finished surface will be, what is excluded, and how first-season settlement is handled.
If you are still working out whether you have a grading problem at all, start with the nine signs a yard needs regrading before you call anyone.
Related questions
Why do grading quotes vary so much?
Should a contractor give a price over the phone?
Is a written quote actually necessary for a small job?
Next
Where to go from here
Yard grading
What the work involves, so you can judge whether a quote covers the whole job.
Grading vs drainage
Worth reading before any quote, so you can tell whether the proposed fix matches the problem.
Request a quote
Ask us the twelve questions below. We would rather answer them than have you find out later.