Excavation and site work in Nanoose Bay
Parksville Excavating works Nanoose Bay, which sits on a mixed stack of overburden and bedrock aquifers. The water table there moves between 1 and 8 metres through the season in the bedrock units. We set your side slopes and drain depths from what the cut exposes, because a lot in Electoral Area E behaves differently in February than the same lot does in August.
Nanoose Bay is the least uniform ground in the service area. Overburden and bedrock aquifers sit alongside each other, and the depth to water swings enough through the year that the season is part of the plan.
A water table that moves
Seasonal fluctuation here runs from under half a metre to about three metres in the overburden aquifers, and from one to eight metres in the bedrock units. That is a wide enough swing that a footing elevation comfortably above water in August can sit below it in February.
We do not guess at that. Depth to water is established when the cut is open, and the drain invert and backfill are set from the measurement rather than from the drawing's assumption.
Mixed ground, mixed rules
The area sits over several mapped aquifers at once — unconsolidated units in Salish and Quadra material, and bedrock units beneath them. The Regional District's June 2026 analysis put the Nanoose Peninsula bedrock aquifer much below normal with a declining trend and the Nanoose surficial aquifer within normal, which shows how much the ground varies inside one community. We treat neighbouring lots as separate jobs rather than assuming they dig the same way.
Farmland Protection applies in Electoral Area E as it does in Areas A and G, on lots over 5,000 square metres, so your rural parcel can need a development permit for land alteration in its own right. We check that before we book you a date, because a permit that turns up late moves the machine off your job and onto someone else's.
People also ask
Does the time of year change how a lot here digs?
Yes. Depth to water moves by metres through the season in the bedrock units, so a cut planned in late summer meets different conditions in midwinter, and we set the drainage detail accordingly.
Is the ground the same across Nanoose Bay?
No. Several aquifers underlie the area at once, some in loose material and some in bedrock, and neighbouring properties can sit over different ones.
Related: Foundation digs and backfill · Ground conditions on Oceanside · Drainage and perimeter drains
Site work we do here
- Land clearing and site prepBrush, stump and topsoil removal, building envelope stripped to grade, and a compacted pad ready for forms. Permit position checked before the machine arrives.
- Foundation digs and backfillFootings dug to the depth on the drawings, benched where the walls are deep, then backfilled and compacted in lifts once the wall has cured.
- Drainage and perimeter drainsPerimeter drain, filter cloth and drain rock at the footing, tied into a sump or a daylight outlet that keeps running through the wet months.
- Driveways and parking padsSubgrade cut, geotextile where the ground is soft, then pit run and crush placed in compacted lifts to a crown that sheds water.