Land clearing is what Barrett's was built on. Phillip Barrett started clearing lots and rural acreage around Grovetown years ago, and it's still the work we do more of than anything else. Whether you've bought a wooded lot in Columbia County and want to put a house on it, inherited an overgrown family property in Burke County, or need a pasture line pushed back at a hunting club in McDuffie, we have the equipment, the experience, and the insurance to clear it efficiently — without tearing up what you want to keep.
We clear from quarter-acre residential lots all the way up to multi-acre commercial sites. Skid steers, forestry mulchers, excavators, dump trailers — whatever the site needs, we bring.
What's Included
- Full tree removal — pines, hardwoods, scrub
- Forestry mulching — turn standing brush into ground cover in one pass
- Underbrushing — selective clearing that keeps your mature trees
- Stump removal or grinding (your call)
- Grading and rough leveling
- Burn pile management or complete debris haul-off
- Erosion control on graded slopes
- Driveway / access road cutting
Our Process
- 01
Walk the Property
We walk the boundaries with you, flag what stays and what goes, and ask the questions that matter — drainage, future use, neighbors.
- 02
Written Quote
Itemized: clearing, hauling, grinding, grading. No surprise add-ons mid-job.
- 03
Bring the Right Iron
Skid steer with forestry mulcher for thick brush, excavator for stumps, dozer for grading, dump trailers for haul-off. We don't try to do a 5-acre job with a chainsaw.
- 04
Clear
Boundary-to-boundary or selective per your plan. Mature trees you want kept are flagged and protected.
- 05
Finish
Site graded smooth, debris gone, ready for survey, septic, or building.
Forestry Mulching vs. Traditional Clearing
Forestry mulching is a one-pass technique where a tracked machine with a hardened drum head chews standing trees and brush directly into ground mulch. It's the right call when you want to clear underbrush without bare soil (for erosion control), keep mature trees standing, or open up a wooded property for hunting lanes and access trails. It's faster than chainsaw-and-haul, leaves no burn piles, and doesn't compact soil the way a tracked dozer does.
Traditional clearing — cut, push to a pile, burn or haul — is the right call when you're prepping a building pad, expanding pasture, or clearing land you want to till. We do both, and we'll tell you straight which method makes sense for what you're trying to accomplish.
Underbrushing for Hunting and Recreation
A lot of our Columbia, McDuffie, and Burke County clients aren't building anything — they just want their land usable. Underbrushing opens up sightlines, kills off the privet and Chinese tallow that's taken over, and lets you actually walk your own property. We can preserve every mature oak, hickory, and pine while clearing everything below 4" diameter in one pass. The result looks like a managed forest, not a clear-cut.
Lot Clearing for New Construction
Building a house on raw land in Columbia County or south Richmond County usually starts with a lot clear. We coordinate with surveyors, septic installers, and builders to make sure the right trees come down at the right time, the building pad is staked correctly, the silt fence goes up where the county wants it, and the driveway cut matches the engineered grade.
If you have a builder, we work with them. If you don't, we can recommend three or four local builders who don't disappear after the foundation is poured.