Getting there
About 19 miles from the Newport shop, north on State Route 20 along the river. Call it half an hour with the trailer. We usually group Cusick and Usk jobs on the same days.
Valley floor versus the benches: two different digs
The Calispell-Cusick valley is broad and low, and the Kalispel Reservation runs along the river through it on ground that is mostly river floodplain. The valley soil is fine sand and silt with the water table close under it in a lot of places, and Calispell Creek and the old drainage ditches carry water across it. Digging there means shallow trenches that want shoring, foundations that need a raised pad and a compacted base, and septic systems that have to be designed by someone who has seen the site evaluation. Get up onto the benches at the edge of the valley and the ground changes to glacial gravel and cobble over hardpan, which digs cleanly and holds a foundation. Most of the newer homes around Cusick are up there, and that is where we do most of our site prep.
Rural lots, long driveways, and a lot of trees
Homes around Cusick are on acreage. Ten, twenty, forty acres of ponderosa pine and mixed conifer with a house set back from the road is the normal lot, and a new build starts with clearing. We clear the building envelope and the driveway corridor, grub the stumps, pile and burn or haul the slash depending on the season and the burn rules, and leave the rest of the timber standing. Then the driveway goes in, because nothing else happens until a concrete truck can reach the pad. A long driveway across Cusick ground usually needs a culvert or two where the drainage crosses it and a base course that will carry a loaded truck in April.
Spring water and the river
The Pend Oreille at Cusick runs highest in spring and early summer on snowmelt, and the valley floor around it gets wet well before the river peaks. Winter freezes everything hard, and mud season on the valley ground can run from March into May. We hold pad grading and foundation work for the valley lots until the ground has drained, and we use the wet weeks for clearing on the higher lots and for hauling. A drainage fix on a Cusick property is best done in late summer when the ditch is dry and you can see exactly where the water wants to go.
Building on a lot in Cusick
New homes around Cusick tend to go in on cleared bench lots above the valley, and those sites take the whole new home site work sequence: clearing, driveway, pad, foundation, and the utility and septic trenches. Our site preparation page at /service/site-preparation/ lays out how we run that so the foundation crew shows up to a pad that is ready. How new home site work runs, start to finish.
Permits around Cusick
Cusick is in Pend Oreille County. Land use, clearing, and grading permits go through Pend Oreille County Community Development in Newport, and septic permits go through Northeast Tri County Health District. Inside the town limits, the Town of Cusick handles its own building questions, and work on or near the Kalispel Reservation has its own process. We will tell you on the site walk which rules apply to your parcel.
Around Cusick
- Pend Oreille River
- State Route 20
- Calispell Creek
- Kalispel Reservation
What we do in Cusick
Everything we do, on one page.
Questions from Cusick
Can you build a house pad on the valley floor near Cusick, or does it have to be on the hill?
It can be done on the valley floor, but the pad has to be raised and drained, and the septic design has to work with a high water table, which limits your options. On the benches the ground is gravel and hardpan and the whole job is simpler. If you are choosing between two parcels, we will walk both and tell you honestly what each one will take.
How do you handle the slash when you clear a lot near Cusick?
It depends on the season and the burn rules. In the wet months we pile and burn on site when a permit allows it. The rest of the year we chip what we can, haul the rest, and leave the merchantable logs decked for you or a logger. We grub the stumps out of the building envelope and driveway and leave the rest of the timber standing.
My Cusick field drains through an old ditch that has silted in. Can you clean it?
Yes. Cleaning and reshaping an old drainage ditch is a regular job for the mini excavator. We dig it back to grade, pull the silt and willows out, and put the spoil where it will not wash back in. If the ditch crosses a driveway we will check the culvert at the same time, because a crushed or undersized culvert is usually why the ditch stopped working.
Nearby
We also work in Usk and Newport. All the towns we cover.