Lot Clearing for New Construction
PV Tree Service works with builders, general contractors, excavators, and owner-builders across Franklin County to clear building sites, driveways, and utility runs. We are fully insured, we own our own equipment, and we can work to a survey and a schedule.
What we handle on a build site
- Clearing the house footprint plus working room for equipment and staging
- Driveway and access road corridors, including on sloped or wooded approaches
- Utility trenching corridors and septic and leach field areas
- Selective clearing to preserve specified trees per plan or per owner request
- Removing hazard trees along the perimeter that will threaten the finished structure
- Brush disposal, chipping, and log handling
Working to a schedule
Clearing sits at the front of the critical path. If it slips, excavation slips, and everything downstream slips with it. We give a realistic window rather than an optimistic one, and we will tell you if weather or ground conditions are going to move it. For contractors, that predictability tends to matter more than shaving a few dollars off the number.
Deciding what to keep
The trees you leave standing on a build site need more thought than the ones you take. Two things catch owners out repeatedly:
Wind exposure. A tree that spent forty years in the middle of a stand developed for that environment. Clear everything around it and it is suddenly a lone tree taking full wind load, with a root plate and taper that never adapted to it. A meaningful share of the trees that come down in the first years after a build are trees that were deliberately preserved.
Root zone damage. Trees are often killed slowly by construction rather than quickly by a saw. Compaction from equipment traffic, trenching through roots, and grade changes over the root plate can all kill a tree over the following three to five years. If a tree is genuinely worth keeping, it needs a protected root zone fenced off before equipment arrives, not a promise to be careful.
Permits and wetlands
Site clearing tied to construction is normally reviewed as part of your building permit. Work near wetlands, streams, vernal pools, or riverfront areas will generally require Conservation Commission review under the Wetlands Protection Act, and that review takes time you should build into the schedule. Confirm with the relevant town before clearing begins.
Get a quote
Call (413) 522-2117 or send site details. Plans and a rough acreage help us turn a number around quickly. See also general land and lot clearing.