Where clearing sits in a construction sequence
Cleared too early, a site sits open through a wet season and erodes. Cleared too late, every trade behind it waits. Clearing is rarely the difficult activity on a development programme and it is frequently the one that determines whether the rest of it works.
Published by the Land Clearing Authority editorial team · Last revised 2026-07-29 · Editorial policy · Corrections
Who this is for
- Owners and small developers sequencing a site rather than a single job
- Anyone whose clearing contractor and earthworks contractor are different firms
- People whose site will be open across a season change
The short answer
Clearing is a predecessor to almost everything and a successor to two things: boundary confirmation and whatever approvals apply to the disturbance. Getting those two wrong makes everything after them provisional.
The most common sequencing error is clearing the whole site at the start because the machine is there. Open ground generates sediment, needs controls, and needs maintaining, and a site cleared months before anyone works on it is a liability rather than progress.
The second most common is clearing without deciding where material goes. Stockpiles, piles, and windrows placed for the clearing crew’s convenience routinely sit exactly where the earthworks contractor needs to be.
What is portable here is the dependency structure. What is not portable is which approvals apply, what thresholds trigger them, or what controls are required — those are set locally and vary by jurisdiction, site, and disturbance area.
What changes the answer
- What approvals or notifications apply to the disturbance where you are
- How long the site will sit open between activities
- Whether the same contractor does clearing and earthworks
- Where material and topsoil can be stockpiled without obstructing later work
- Whether the season will change before the next trade arrives
The dependency order
Read this as the order of dependencies rather than as a schedule. The durations belong to your programme; the sequence does not change.
- Confirm boundaries and easements — everything downstream assumes them
- Resolve whatever approvals, notifications, or controls apply to the disturbance
- Submit the utility locate request with the notice your state requires
- Install perimeter and drainage controls before ground is opened
- Clear only the area the next activity needs
- Strip and stockpile topsoil where it is not in the way
- Handle stumps and roots where the design requires their removal
- Hand over to earthworks with a documented, agreed condition
Clearing only what the next activity needs
Phased clearing costs more in mobilisation and usually less in total risk, and on a site that will be open across a wet season the difference is not marginal.
The reasoning is simple: bare ground is unstable ground. Every acre opened is an acre generating sediment, needing controls, and needing those controls maintained until something covers it again. An acre left standing generates none of that.
The counter-argument is real too. Bringing a machine back is a second mobilisation, and on a small site the mobilisation may exceed the saving. The decision turns on how long the gap between activities actually is.
The handover that usually is not one
Where clearing and earthworks are different firms, the interface between them is where sites lose time.
A clearing contractor finishing to their own idea of complete may leave material, stumps, or a surface the earthworks contractor then has to deal with. That work gets done, priced as a variation, and nobody planned it.
What prevents it is a written handover condition agreed by both firms before either starts: what will be removed, what stumps remain and to what depth, where material and topsoil sit, and what the surface will be. Getting both contractors to agree that description in advance is worth more than any amount of supervision afterwards.
Where topsoil goes, and why it matters later
Topsoil is a finite resource on any site and a valuable one, and it is routinely lost during clearing rather than during earthworks.
Losing it happens two ways: dragged into piles by a toothed rake, or buried under material and traffic. Both are avoidable and neither is avoided by accident.
If topsoil is to be reused for landscaping, planting, or restoration, decide before clearing where it will be stripped from, where it will be stockpiled, and how it will be protected. A stockpile in the wrong place is moved twice; a stockpile mixed with debris is not topsoil any more.
One contractor or two, and what changes
Where a single firm does clearing and earthworks, the interface disappears and so does most of the coordination risk. That is a real advantage and it is worth paying something for.
What you give up is comparability. A combined quote bundles two trades into one number, and you lose the ability to test either half against a specialist. On larger programmes that matters; on a small site it usually does not.
The middle position is to ask both kinds of bidder. Get a combined price from firms that do everything, and separate prices from a clearing specialist and an earthworks specialist. If the separated prices are lower, the difference is what coordination is costing you, and you can decide whether you want to own that coordination yourself.
Where you do separate them, the handover condition below stops being paperwork and becomes the most important sentence in either contract.
The comparison worth making
Two approaches, and the trade between them is the whole sequencing decision.
| Clear the whole site now | Clear in phases | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobilisations | One | Several |
| Exposed ground | Maximum, for longest | Minimum at any moment |
| Control installation and upkeep | Whole perimeter, whole period | Rolling, smaller extent |
| Sediment and erosion exposure | Highest | Lowest |
| Programme flexibility | Low — decisions are made | High — later phases can change |
| Best suited to | Short programmes, dry seasons, small sites | Long programmes, wet seasons, large sites |
What drives the cost
| Driver | Effect |
|---|---|
| Number of mobilisations | Each return visit carries setup cost regardless of area worked |
| Duration ground stays open | Longer exposure means more control installation and maintenance |
| Stockpile placement | A pile in the wrong place is handled twice |
| Handover definition | An undefined interface becomes a priced variation for the following trade |
| Topsoil protection | Preserving and stockpiling topsoil takes deliberate effort during clearing |
Common mistakes
- Clearing the whole site because the machine is already there
- Opening ground before controls are in place
- Placing stockpiles where the earthworks contractor needs to work
- Leaving the clearing-to-earthworks handover condition undefined
- Losing topsoil during clearing and buying it back later
Questions to ask a contractor
- What condition will you hand the site over in, in measurable terms?
- Where do you propose to place material and topsoil stockpiles?
- Can you clear in phases, and what does each additional mobilisation involve?
- Which stumps will remain, and to what depth?
- Have you and the earthworks contractor agreed the interface?
What to do next
- Confirm boundaries and applicable approvals before booking any machine
- Decide how much of the site the next activity actually needs open
- Agree stockpile locations with both clearing and earthworks contractors
- Write the handover condition down and have both firms confirm it
Questions people actually ask
Should I clear the whole site at once to save money?
Only if the gap before the next activity is short and the season is favourable. Otherwise the saving on mobilisation is spent on controls, maintenance, and sediment risk on ground nobody is working yet.
Do stumps have to come out before earthworks?
Where the design requires a root-free profile, yes, and where it does not, no. The important thing is that the requirement is stated and both contractors know it, because assumptions differ between trades.
What approvals will I need?
That is set by state and local rules and depends on disturbance area, proximity to water, and other local factors, so it cannot be answered nationally. Your state environmental agency and local authority are the correct starting points.
Who owns the interface between clearing and earthworks?
You do, unless one firm is doing both. That is why a written handover condition agreed by both contractors before work starts is worth the hour it takes to produce.
Work out the scope before you ask for prices
Answer the five questions every quote depends on — what is growing, where the material goes, how deep removal has to reach, whether equipment can get in, and what the land is for afterwards. Then send one properly described project to the right kind of contractor.
Nothing on this site is a recommendation of a specific company. The guidance describes categories of work and the questions worth asking. If you decide to request quotes, the introduction is free to you, contractors may pay to receive it, and you are under no obligation to hire anyone.