General Contractor in Edmonton for New Builds and Commercial Work

On the residential side we build new homes, detached garages, additions, shops and outbuildings, and we handle the site work that goes with them — excavation, backfill, grading, driveway and walkway concrete, and the landscaping that finishes the lot. Rear-lane garages in Edmonton's mature neighbourhoods come with their own constraints: narrow lane access, overhead lines, mature trees and neighbours on both sides, all of which shape how equipment gets in and where material gets stockpiled.

For commercial construction Edmonton owners and property managers bring us structural slabs, formed columns, pads, service buildings and the site work around them. We form, pour and power trowel our own concrete rather than handing it off, which is why the slab schedule stays inside our control instead of somebody else's.

Every project runs the same way regardless of size: a defined scope, a written quote, a schedule with real dates on it, and one person you speak to about all of it.

Most of what determines whether a building sits still for the next thirty years happens before anything visible goes up. Much of the Edmonton region sits on heavy clay, which holds water, moves as it takes on and gives up moisture, and needs proper compaction in lifts rather than a bucket of backfill dumped in and levelled off.

Footings and pile depths are governed by the frost line, and in central Alberta that is well below a metre. Anything founded shallower than the design depth is exposed to frost heave — the annual lift and drop that cracks foundation walls, racks door frames and pulls flatwork away from the building. We dig to the depth the design and the inspection require, not to the depth that saves an hour on the excavator.

Drainage is the other half of it. The finished grade has to fall away from the building on every side so that meltwater in March runs to the street or the swale instead of pooling against the foundation and freezing there. We set rough grade with that final elevation in mind, and we tie it to the lot grading the site actually has to meet.

Edmonton buildings live through a hard annual cycle: months of deep cold, then a spring where the ground thaws from the top down and water has nowhere to go. Detailing that would be optional in a milder climate is not optional here.

Concrete placed on our jobs is specified with air entrainment where it will be exposed, because the microscopic air voids are what give the paste somewhere to expand when trapped water freezes. Late-season pours get hoarding, insulated blankets and heat so the concrete reaches strength before it can freeze — a slab that freezes in its first days never recovers the strength it was supposed to have, and no amount of finishing hides it later.

The same thinking runs through the rest of the build: joints where the structure needs to move, flashing and drainage details that shed water rather than trapping it, and backfill placed so it does not settle into a trench that funnels runoff straight at the wall.

Most new construction needs approvals before it starts, and what applies depends on the municipality, the zoning and the scope of the work. Anything touching the City sidewalk, the boulevard or a driveway crossing sits in the road right-of-way, which is public land and generally needs the City's sign-off separately from a building permit. Requirements and fees change, so confirm the current ones with your municipality — we will tell you plainly which approvals your project looks like it needs, and we work to the inspection schedule once they are in place.

Before anything is dug, utility locates go in. Gas, power, telecom and water lines are not always where an old drawing says they are, and on infill lots in established neighbourhoods they are frequently not. Waiting for the locates is cheaper than hitting a line.

We build to pass inspection rather than to get past it. If an inspector wants something changed, it gets changed, and you hear about it from us before you hear about it from anyone else.