Skip to main content

Hooper's Excavation & Demolition

Earthworks: Moving Dirt in Serious Quantities

Reshaping ground is the core of what we do — cut and fill, leveling, berms, swales, banks, and hauling. When the job is measured in hundreds or thousands of yards, our 20-ton excavator and dozer make quick, clean work of it.

Earthworks illustration

Ground the way you actually want it

Every property has ground fighting its owner — the hill where the shop should sit, the low spot that never dries, the bank sliding into the creek. Earthworks is the fix-it category: cutting high ground down, filling low ground up (in compacted lifts, not loose dumps), and shaping everything so water behaves.

Hooper's Excavation and Demolition handles bulk excavation and land shaping across Central Indiana for homeowners, farms, and builders — jobs too big for a skid steer outfit and too custom for a highway contractor to bother with.

Earthwork we do

  • Cut and fill — rebalancing a site so you buy or haul as little material as possible.
  • Land leveling and reshaping — building sites, yards, arenas, and lots.
  • Berms and mounds — privacy, sound, windbreak, and drainage berms built compacted so they last.
  • Erosion and bank repair — reshaping slopes that are getting away, with stone armoring where called for.
  • Dirt hauling — surplus off, fill in, topsoil delivered and spread.

Why equipment size matters

Moving 1,000 yards with a compact machine is a month of Saturdays. Our 200CLC excavator and 550K dozer move that in days — which is why our price per yard on bulk work beats small-iron outfits even at a higher day rate. Right-sized equipment is the whole economics of earthmoving.

Permits, by County

We pull the permits on most jobs — these links show where each county's rules live for the approvals this kind of work usually touches. Exact requirements depend on the parcel.

Inside city or town limits, municipal rules often replace or add to these county resources — several towns run their own building, driveway, and stormwater programs. Check your address to see the exact authority and contacts for your parcel.

Statewide: the IDEM Construction Stormwater General Permit (CSGP) applies to any site disturbing an acre or more — or less than an acre when the work is part of a larger common plan of development.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you price earthmoving work?+

Bulk work is priced from the cubic yards moved, haul distance, and compaction requirements — quoted as a firm job price after a site visit, not an hourly meter you watch nervously. Small shaping jobs may be day-rate; we tell you which is cheaper for your situation.

Can you level my backyard?+

Yes — yard leveling and regrading is common work for us, usually paired with drainage improvements since standing water is why most yards need regrading in the first place. We save and respread your topsoil so the yard grows grass again.

Do you haul in fill dirt and topsoil?+

Yes. We source and haul clean structural fill and screened topsoil, and we spread and grade what we deliver. If your project generates surplus dirt, we haul that off or reuse it elsewhere on the property.

How is fill compacted so it does not settle?+

In lifts — thin layers, each compacted by tracked equipment or roller before the next goes down. Loose-dumped fill settles for years and is how ponds appear where patios used to be. Lift compaction is non-negotiable on anything that will carry a structure, drive, or slab.

Ready to break ground?

Serving Central Indiana from Arcadia. Straight answers, real equipment, done right.