Getting there
About 16 miles from the Newport shop, north on State Route 20 along the river. Twenty-five minutes with the trailer, and a few more if the job is across the bridge on LeClerc Road.
River bottom on one side, benches and hills on the other
The ground at Usk depends on how far you are from the water. Along the river the soil is sand and silt, easy digging that slumps in a trench and holds water in a hole. A little higher, on the benches where most of the homes sit, it turns to glacial gravel and cobble with hardpan underneath, which is good foundation ground and compacts well under a driveway. Climb toward the hills on either side of the valley and rock starts showing up under the topsoil, first as scattered boulders and then as outcrop. The Cat 303.5E2 handles the gravel and cobble without trouble. Rock we plan for: a foundation on a rocky Usk hillside may need a hard-dig approach and a different price, and we tell you that on the site walk rather than after we hit it.
Rural lots, long gravel drives, and the LeClerc Road side
Usk homes are on acreage, and a lot of them are on the east side of the river along LeClerc Road, which parallels SR-20 on the far bank. Those lots are timber on a slope with a long gravel driveway climbing to a house site with a view of the valley. Driveway work is a big share of what we do there: cutting a new drive into the slope with the grade held low enough for a concrete truck, adding culverts where the drainage crosses, and rebuilding old drives that have lost their crown and turned to washboard and mud. Site prep for new homes follows the same driveway in: clear the envelope, cut the pad, dig the foundation, trench the utilities.
Seasons and the river at Usk
The Pend Oreille between Albeni Falls Dam and Box Canyon Dam is a reservoir, and its flows run highest in spring and early summer on snowmelt. Low lots near the water get soft before the river rises and stay soft after. Winter freezes the ground hard, spring thaw is mud, and the shaded slopes on the east side hold frost longer than the sunny benches. We schedule grading and foundation work by ground conditions, and we use the wet weeks for clearing and hauling. Late summer is the time to fix drainage at Usk, when the ditches are dry and you can see the whole problem.
Building on a lot in Usk
New homes around Usk go in on the benches and the wooded slopes along both sides of the river, and each one starts with the same new home site work: a driveway the trucks can climb, a cleared and graded pad, a foundation dug to the plan, and utility and septic trenches run before the driveway is finished. Our site preparation page at /service/site-preparation/ walks through that sequence. How new home site work runs, start to finish.
Permits around Usk
Usk is unincorporated Pend Oreille County. Land use, clearing, and grading questions go through Pend Oreille County Community Development in Newport, and septic permits go through Northeast Tri County Health District. Lots near the river carry shoreline rules on top of that. We will tell you on the site walk which rules apply to your parcel and what has to be approved before we dig.
Around Usk
- Pend Oreille River
- State Route 20
- LeClerc Road
- Kings Lake Road
- Usk bridge
What we do in Usk
Everything we do, on one page.
Questions from Usk
Do you work on the LeClerc Road side of the river at Usk?
Yes. We cross the Usk bridge and work the lots along LeClerc Road and up the side roads regularly. The drive is a few minutes longer than the SR-20 side and it does not change the bid much. Those lots tend to be steeper and more wooded, so driveway cuts and pad grading into a slope are the common jobs there.
What happens if you hit rock digging a foundation on a Usk hillside?
We try to know before we dig. On the site walk we look at outcrops, the neighbors' cuts, and any test holes, and if rock is likely we bid the job as a hard-dig with the right approach for it. If we find rock nobody expected, we stop, show you, and price the change before going on. Nobody gets a surprise bill for rock on our jobs.
Can you regrade an old gravel driveway near Usk without tearing it all out?
Often, yes. If the base is sound and the drive has just lost its crown, we reshape it so it sheds water, add base rock where it has thinned, and compact a new top course. If it was gravel spread on topsoil and it sinks every spring, we strip the soft material and rebuild it with a proper base, because reshaping mud only lasts until the next thaw.
Nearby
We also work in Cusick and Newport. All the towns we cover.