Field notes

Guides written from actual job sites

Name: BR Services LLC
Address: San Pablo, CA, US
Telephone: (510) 277-6570
Price range: $$

Six articles covering the questions that come up most on estimate visits — permits, methods, materials, and the mistakes that cost the most to correct.

Excavated back yard with soil piles, layout stakes and braced forms behind a house

Roll-off container inside the temporary fence of a demolition site

Featured · Permits7 min read

Demolition Permits in the East Bay: What to Settle Before the Machine Arrives

A teardown rarely stalls because of the machine. It stalls because a utility disconnect was requested three weeks too late. Here is the sequence that works.

Read the article

Permits7 min read

Demolition Permits in the East Bay: What to Settle Before the Machine Arrives

A teardown rarely stalls because of the machine. It stalls because a utility disconnect was requested three weeks too late. Here is the sequence that works.

Read the article

Diagram comparing partial pool removal against full removal of the shell

Pool removal7 min read

Partial or Full Pool Removal: How to Choose Without Regretting It

Partial removal costs less and is often the right call. It also permanently changes what you can build there. The choice deserves ten minutes of thought.

Read the article

Roll-off containers stacked at the yard with the level-full warning label visible

Debris6 min read

Picking a Dumpster Size That Does Not Come Back to Bite You

The mistake is not ordering a container that is too small. It is ordering one that is too big for concrete and hitting the weight limit half full.

Read the article

Back yard cut to grade with layout stakes along the fence line

Drainage7 min read

Why Your Crawl Space Is Wet: Grading, Slope, and the Six-Inch Rule

Water in a crawl space almost never originates in the crawl space. It arrives because the ground outside is pointed at your house.

Read the article

Tracked loader working stockpiled soil on an open site

Materials6 min read

Fill Dirt, Topsoil, and Base Rock: What Each One Is Actually For

Most material failures are not bad material. They are the right material used for the wrong job — base rock in a drain, drain rock under pavers, subsoil under a lawn.

Read the article

Excavated back yard with soil piles, stakes and braced forms behind a house

Excavation7 min read

Before You Dig: How Utility Locating Actually Works in the East Bay

The 811 marks tell you approximately where a line is. Everything expensive happens in the gap between approximately and exactly.

Read the article

Something specific?

We would rather answer your question than have you read six articles

Call (510) 277-6570 during working hours and describe the situation. There is no charge for a straight answer.

Call (510) 277-6570 Email us instead