Forestry mulching
$1,200 to $4,500 / acre
RootsStay in the ground
MaterialStays as chip on site
Ground afterOpen, covered, same shape
RegrowthYes. 3 to 5 years
Build on it?No
Right when you want land usable and intend to maintain it. See mulching →
Vegetation and root mass taken out down to bare soil, then the ground shaped and left ready for whatever gets built on it. $1,500 to $10,000 an acre depending on what’s standing there and what has to happen to the material.
Clearing is the version you buy when something is getting built. The growth comes down, the roots come out, and the ground gets shaped.
Land clearing is three jobs that happen in sequence and get quoted as one. The standing vegetation comes down. The root mass, stumps and root balls come out of the ground. Then the material has to go somewhere. And that last part is the piece that moves the price more than most people expect.
What you’re left with is bare, shaped soil that a surveyor can set on, a concrete crew can work from, and a building inspector won’t have an opinion about. That’s the difference between this and mulching, which leaves the roots in the ground and is a maintenance service rather than a construction one.
A cleared acre produces a large volume of material. Stumps, root balls, trunks and soil-heavy spoil that doesn’t compact and can’t be built over. You have three options and they price very differently:
Leave it on site in a pile out of the way is cheapest. Grind and spread costs more but leaves the property tidy. Haul it off is the most expensive by a distance, because it’s truck loads and tipping fees, and the number is driven by how far the nearest place that will take it happens to be from you.
We quote all three when it’s a close call, so you can see what the tidy option is actually costing you rather than finding out at the end.
The single biggest reason two clearing quotes come back thousands of dollars apart is that they’re not describing the same finished ground. Pick the level you actually need.
| Level | What happens | You’re left with | Cost posture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knocked downVegetation only | Everything standing comes down and gets piled or mulched in place. Roots stay. | Open ground with root mass still in it. | lowest |
| Roots outGrub and remove | Stumps, root balls and the root mat come out. Material piled on site. | Bare soil, uneven, with a pile to deal with later. | mid |
| Cleared and rakedGrub, rake, pile | As above, plus a rake pass that pulls remaining roots and debris out of the soil. | Clean soil ready to be shaped or built on. | higher |
| Cleared and hauledNothing left behind | Everything above plus the material trucked off site and tipped. | Clean, empty, shaped ground and no pile anywhere. | highest |
When you compare quotes from anyone, the question that tells you the most is simply: what happens to the material? A number well under this page usually means it’s being left where it falls.
It’s the more expensive of the two options, and it’s not always the one you need.
Longer than a mulching job, and there’s one decision in the middle that you make, not us.
Two things worth doing before we arrive:
Most residential clearing jobs run two to five days. A raw acre with heavy hammock on it and haul-off can be longer, and we’ll give you a real number of days rather than an optimistic one.
The two get confused constantly, they cost very different money, and the right answer comes down to one question: is anything getting built on it?
Both from properties inside the service area.
Five Central Florida counties out of Titusville, and the ground is different enough between them to matter.
Cleared ground still has to be shaped so water runs off it and the next trade can work. Usually the same trip.
See grading →If a structure is going upFill brought up, shaped and compacted to the elevation and footprint your plan calls for.
See building pads →If you need to get inAccess cut in from the road, culvert set at the ditch and a base that will still be there in five years.
See driveways →Whatever you decide. Piled somewhere out of the way on the property is cheapest. Ground and spread costs more and leaves it tidy. Hauled off and tipped is the most expensive, because it’s truck loads and disposal fees and the number depends on how far the nearest facility that will take it’s from you. We quote the options rather than assuming.
Yes. That’s the defining difference between clearing and mulching. Stumps, root balls and the root mat come out of the ground, which is why the ground can then take a foundation.
Mulching grinds what’s standing and leaves the roots and the chip in place. It makes land usable. Clearing takes the roots out and leaves bare shaped soil. It makes land buildable. Mulching is roughly a third of the price. If nothing is getting built, you almost certainly want mulching.
Yes, and it’s common. A building envelope, a driveway route and a yard area cleared out of a wooded parcel is a normal job. Mark what you want and what stays, or walk it with us and we’ll flag it together.
Light ground with the material staying on site, roughly a day. Heavy hammock with roots out and haul-off, three to four days for the same acre. Density and what happens to the material are the whole story. Acreage on its own tells you very little.
Often yes on well-drained sand, and it depends entirely on the parcel. Low flatwoods ground with a high water table is a different question, and clearing wet ground can mean rutting and hauling material that weighs twice what it should. If a job should wait, we’ll tell you.
On most of this ground there’s very little of it to save. Where there is, it can be stripped and stockpiled on site before clearing and put back over the finished grade. Worth asking for if you plan on sod or planting afterwards.
That side of it belongs to the property owner, and on a build your builder or engineer will normally be handling it already. We turn up and do the earthwork.
Most quotes come back the same day. No deposit on mulching or site work, and the price we agree on is the price you pay.