Excavation Contractor Wasaga Beach
Dig the Test Pit Before You Dig the Basement
In Wasaga Beach the groundwater, measured in a pit inside your footprint, decides how deep the house can go. Everything else about the dig follows from that number.
Site Preparation
Clearing, excavation, grading, drainage, driveway, well and septic.See the service →Ask an excavation contractor Wasaga Beach homeowners have called how deep the basement will be, and the right answer is: we will know after the test pit. The Town of Wasaga Beach does not leave basement depth to habit. Its Infill Lot Grading and Drainage Policy ties the footing, the weeping tile and the basement floor to one measured number, the estimated seasonal high groundwater table on your lot, and the Town checks the result before backfill.
That makes the excavation in Wasaga Beach a sequence rather than a single day with a machine. This page follows it from the first hole to the last spill pile, using the Town’s policy and by-laws, and shows where our site work fits.
The Hole Before the Hole
Item 8 of section 7 and all of section 10 of the policy describe the first excavation on a Wasaga Beach lot, and it is a small one. The Wasaga Beach owner arranges a test pit inside the proposed building footprint or close to it. It is dug until it meets groundwater. If it stays dry, it has to reach at least 1.0 metre below the proposed underside of the footing, to allow for seasonal rise.
The pit’s location, the date, and the groundwater elevation observed go on the lot grading plan. Because water tables move through the year, the policy treats March and April as the reference months. A pit dug at any other time needs an “estimated seasonal high groundwater table elevation”, and the policy points the designer to the Town of Wasaga Beach’s own groundwater monitoring data to estimate it.
In practice that means a test pit in late summer gives a lower reading than the one the house will be judged against. Timing the pit, or allowing for the adjustment, is the first excavation decision on a Wasaga Beach build, and it happens before the lot grading plan can be finished.
Three Heights Measured From the Water
Once the seasonal high is set, section 10 and item 21 of the policy fix three elevations above it, and they are the ones the excavation is cut to:
- the underside of the footing, at least 300 mm above the estimated seasonal high groundwater table
- the weeping tile invert, at least 300 mm above it
- the top of the basement slab, at least 500 mm above it, and the same 500 mm applies to any slab-on-grade
Wasaga Beach checks the work, not just the drawing. Item 22 requires the weeping tile sleeve invert to be surveyed after installation and confirmed in writing to the building inspector before the backfill inspection, and inspectors will not carry out backfill or later inspections until the weeping tile invert and top of foundation are confirmed. An excavation cut a few hundred millimetres too deep is a problem the paperwork will find.
Where Wasaga Beach footings genuinely have to sit below the water table, the policy does not forbid it. It requires the qualified designer to review the footing and foundation design against the soil conditions, and the Town may ask for a geotechnical report covering backfill, foundations, retaining walls and slope stability.
What to Ask Any Excavation Contractor Wasaga Beach Owners Call
Depth is the big one, but the Wasaga Beach policy governs the rest of the dig too. These are the questions we would want answered by anyone putting a machine on your Wasaga Beach lot, and the Town rule behind each.
Where will the spill piles go?
Item 44: at least 2.0 metres from every property boundary, ringed with erosion control, or trucked off site. On a narrow Wasaga Beach lot that can decide whether soil stays at all.
Who calls in the locates?
General note 4, required on every grading plan: the owner, builder or applicant obtains utility and servicing locates before any work starts.
What happens to the old well or septic?
The Town’s plan review checklist asks for existing wells and septic systems to be decommissioned, and shown on the Wasaga Beach grading plan.
How is silt kept off the road?
General note 1: sediment and erosion control so no silt reaches a neighbouring lot, the municipal right-of-way or a watercourse.
Soak-Away Pits, Slopes and Walls
In parts of Wasaga Beach the municipal storm drainage is limited or missing, and the policy says so plainly. Where that is the case, roof water can be sent into the ground instead, through soak-away pits, and the excavation has to make room for them. Each pit is at least 1.0 m by 1.5 m and 1.0 m deep, built to the Town’s standard drawing 11, set at least 1.0 metre from any property line and 4.0 metres from any foundation, with a surface depression at least 150 mm below the surrounding grade. Appendix A adds a 0.3 metre clearance between the bottom of the pit and the water table, which brings the test pit back into it.
Wasaga Beach grading has limits as well. No lot surface steeper than 5% without a 3 to 1 slope to take up the difference, and grading must drain away from the house at 2% or more, consistent with Article 9.14.6.1 of the Ontario Building Code that the policy quotes. Where a retaining wall is unavoidable, any wall 1.0 metre or taller needs a stamped engineering design and a safety fence at least 1.2 metres high on top, and must sit entirely on your lot. The Town says it strongly discourages retaining walls and would rather see neighbours coordinate grading.
Trees: Clear After the Permit, Not Before
Wasaga Beach’s tree by-law, 2019-82, defines injuring a tree to include changing grades around it, compacting soil over its roots and severing roots. That is a fair description of excavation on a wooded Wasaga Beach lot. On land the by-law covers, which includes woodlands, lands in the Official Plan’s Natural Heritage System, any parcel of a hectare or more, commercial zones and Town-owned land, injuring or removing trees needs a permit.
The by-law exempts trees that must come out to erect a building for which a building permit has been issued and that took tree protection around the work into account, and trees removed to bring in utilities or a single-lane driveway for that building. The order matters: clear first and the exemption is not there to lean on. The lot grading plan also has to show existing trees by size and type and mark which are retained, and the Wasaga Beach policy asks that vegetation be preserved as much as possible.
How Our Site Work Fits
A&R Design Build is a design-build company, and our site preparation is the first phase of a home or cottage we are building: lot clearing, excavation and grading, drainage, the driveway, and the well and septic systems rural lots depend on, under one schedule. On our builds, Rene Ouellet Jr., the owner, oversees site preparation, excavation and foundations himself.
We are based in Innisfil, and Wasaga Beach is in Simcoe County, a region our site lists among those we serve. We have built more than 1,500 homes and cottages since 1973. If you are planning a house in Wasaga Beach, the test pit is a good reason to talk early: its timing can move a basement floor, and that is far easier to plan for than to fix.
Digging in Wasaga Beach: Questions
How deep can a basement be dug in Wasaga Beach?
The Town of Wasaga Beach sets it from groundwater, not from a standard depth. Its Infill Lot Grading and Drainage Policy requires the top of the basement floor to be at least 500 mm above the estimated seasonal high groundwater table, and the underside of the footing and the weeping tile at least 300 mm above it.
When and where is the test pit dug?
Within the proposed building footprint or close to it, before the lot grading plan is finalized. It goes down until it meets groundwater, or at least 1.0 metre below the proposed underside of footing if it stays dry. A pit dug outside March or April needs an estimated seasonal high groundwater level, which the policy suggests deriving from the Town’s groundwater monitoring data.
What if the footings have to go below the groundwater table?
Section 10 of the policy says the qualified designer must then review the footing and foundation design against the soil conditions and make sure the structure is designed for it. The Town can also ask for a geotechnical report from a qualified consultant.
Can I clear trees on my Wasaga Beach lot before the permit?
On lots covered by the Town’s tree by-law, 2019-82, which applies to woodlands, Natural Heritage System lands, parcels of a hectare or more, commercial zones and Town land, removal needs a permit unless it is required to build something for which a building permit has already been issued. Clearing first can lose that exemption.
Who is responsible for utility locates?
The policy makes it a mandatory note on every grading plan: the owner, builder or applicant is responsible for obtaining utility and servicing locates before any works.
Where does the excavated soil go?
Spill piles from the excavation must be kept at least 2.0 metres from every property boundary and surrounded by erosion control, or taken off site. Sediment has to be kept off neighbouring lots, the road allowance and any watercourse.
Related Services
Permits & Approvals
Grading plans, permits and inspections, coordinated with the dig.
See the service →
Planning a Dig in Wasaga Beach?
Tell us about the lot. We will talk through the test pit, the levels and the site work before anyone commits to a depth.