Land clearing is the job of getting a block back to a state you can actually do something with. Build on it, landscape it, sell it, or just walk across it. Everything standing in the way comes out, the ground gets levelled, and every load leaves with us.
What gets removed
On a typical suburban block in Melbourne’s north, that means some combination of:
- Overgrowth — long grass, blackberry, weed trees, self-seeded saplings and whatever has taken over the back fence line.
- Stumps and roots — dug out rather than ground down, so the ground is workable afterwards rather than full of buried timber.
- Concrete — old paths, clothesline pads, shed slabs, cracked driveways and forgotten footings.
- Structures — collapsing sheds, aviaries, rotten decking, redundant fence lines, dead retaining walls.
- Buried rubbish — there is nearly always some, and on a long-neglected block there is usually more than the owner expects.
Then the block gets graded flat and the site is swept up. What you are left with is bare, level ground with a clean edge, not a cleared block with a spoil pile parked in the middle of it.
How a clearing job runs
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Photos and a price
Three or four photos and rough dimensions are usually enough. The one that matters most is a shot standing at the front of the property looking down the access path — that decides which machine comes and how the day is planned.
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Services located
A Before You Dig Australia request goes in on any job that breaks ground. It is free, it takes minutes, and hitting a gas line is the most expensive way to save half an hour.
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Clear, then level
Vegetation and structures come out first, then anything buried, then the ground gets graded. Spoil is loaded straight into the tipper as it goes rather than stockpiled and double-handled.
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Site left clean
Everything leaves with us — that is the part people are most often surprised by, because plenty of operators clear a block and leave the pile. Photos of the finished site on request.
What sets the price
Land clearing is quoted per job, not per square metre, because two blocks of identical area can be a full day apart. Six things move the number:
- Access width
- The narrowest point on the path from the street to the work area. This matters more than block size — see measuring your access.
- Volume leaving site
- How many tipper loads it takes. Usually the largest single component of a suburban job.
- Material type
- Concrete and soil are heavy but cheap to tip. Mixed rubbish is light and expensive to tip. Green waste is its own stream.
- Stumps and concrete
- Both turn a clearing job into a breaking-out job, which is slower and harder on the machine.
- Ground and slope
- Wet clay, steep falls and working next to a retaining wall or a boundary all slow the machine down.
- Distance to the tip
- Every load is a round trip. It is why a Meadow Heights job prices differently to one an hour out.
The full breakdown, with what to send so the quote you get is the quote you pay, is in what land clearing costs in Melbourne.
Trees are not just overgrowth
Councils across Melbourne’s north protect trees above a certain height or trunk circumference, and some properties carry a planning overlay covering native vegetation. Grass, scrub and weed saplings are one thing; an established tree is another. Check with your council first — we will not take out a protected tree without a permit, and being asked to is the fastest way to a conversation you would rather not have with a council officer.
Tight access is the normal case
Nearly every backyard job in Melbourne’s north is a tight access job. The 1.8 tonne machine has retractable tracks and needs roughly a metre of genuinely clear width, which a standard side gate usually gives — the thing that actually blocks it is more often a meter box, a downpipe or a rainwater tank halfway along the side of the house.
If the only route in is through the garage, over a neighbour’s driveway or after three fence palings come out, that is all workable. It just needs to be known before the day, not discovered on it.
Before and after
The sliders on the home page are real jobs, photographed from the same spot before and after — a nature strip and a side yard, both in Melbourne’s north, both done in a day. Nothing on this site is a stock photo of someone else’s work.