Turn the foundation plan into earthwork quantities — bank CY, the ring backfill, loose haul-off, and site work — priced per cubic yard with material and labor split, and a reviewable estimate you can edit and send.
ROOM TAKEOFF
Upload the foundation plan
Start with the sheet whose outline and area drive the excavation volume — the foundation plan is the hole.
Foundation outline
Vega resolves the foundation perimeter and area from the plan — the same geometry Structural Concrete and Waterproofing use, so the trades never disagree on the building.
The hole
The outline pushed out by the overdig (footing projection + working clearance), × the dig depth. Two models: mass excavation for a basement or crawl, or footing trenches for a stem wall or slab.
Bank CY, backfill & haul
Bank volume (in-place) is what you pay to dig. The ring backfill goes back around the foundation. The loose haul volume (bank × swell) is what the trucks carry — and on a basement it costs more than the dig.
Site work & fees
Site grading is an assumed area and depth — not a measurement. Utility trenching and site drainage are linear feet you enter. Permits, survey, and soil testing are separate fee lines.
Review & bid
Check the outline source, adjust the depth, overdig, or swell, toggle the soil and foundation type, and carry the excavation estimate into a proposal alongside the concrete trades.
The hole is measured off the foundation plan. Site-wide grading is an assumption — badged and warned, never presented as measured.
The excavation volume is real geometry off the foundation plan — the outline pushed out by the overdig, multiplied by the dig depth. Bank CY is in-place volume; loose CY is what the trucks carry. Backfill is the ring around the foundation, not the whole hole. Site-wide cut/fill needs the grade surfaces, which no plan set here provides, so that line is an explicitly-badged assumption.
Rates anchored to 2026 national and regional market ranges. No Utah contractor bid exists, so every rate is the confirmed midpoint and the band chips are the sanity check. Excludes dewatering, paving, blasting, 811 locating, and import fill — each separate scope.
An excavation estimate is only as good as the geometry behind it. Vega shows the outline source, separates bank from loose, and flags the difference between a measured hole and an assumed grading — so you are never left with a black-box number.
See the outline source
The estimate shows whether the foundation area and perimeter came from the traced foundation outline, the exterior walls, or the room-union — so you know what is behind the hole.
Bank vs loose, side by side
The dig bills in-place (bank) volume; the haul bills loose volume (bank × swell). They are shown separately on purpose — on a real basement the haul costs more than the dig.
The ring backfill, not the hole
Backfill is the ring around the foundation, not the whole hole — the basement void is the room, and it is what leaves the site. The estimate says so rather than quietly filling it back in.
Measured hole, assumed grading
The excavation volume is real geometry off the foundation plan. Site-wide cut/fill needs the existing and finished grade surfaces, which no plan set here provides — so that line is badged and warned, never presented as measured.
Edit depth, overdig, and swell
The dig depth, the overdig offset, the soil swell factor, and the bank slope are all editable dials. Every change recomputes the whole chain forward — bank CY, backfill, haul, and price.
Warnings you can act on
No foundation outline, no depth, vertical banks over OSHA's 5 ft trigger, rock likely but unpriced, a noted water table, out-of-band rates — each warning names the dial to fix it.
Dig (in-place)
— CY
Bank volume
Backfilled
— CY
The ring only
Hauled (loose)
— CY
Bank × swell
Illustrative breakdown — quantities and prices shown as placeholders, not actual Vega output.
EXCAVATION & SITEWORK CONTRACTORS
Focus on the hole — bank CY, the ring backfill, and the loose haul — and carry it into a trade-specific bid without rebuilding the takeoff from scratch.
GENERAL CONTRACTORS
Estimate excavation alongside structural concrete, rebar, and waterproofing — one foundation outline, one project, one proposal — instead of rebuilding each scope.
Excavation estimating software helps contractors turn foundation plans into earthwork quantities — bank cubic yards, backfill, haul-off, and site work — and then into material and labor pricing and a reviewable estimate. Vega is built around that workflow for excavation and sitework contractors.
Vega derives the excavation volume from the foundation outline. The dig area is the foundation pushed outward by an overdig (the footing projection plus a working clearance), and the volume is that area multiplied by the dig depth. The foundation area and perimeter come from the same shared geometry Structural Concrete and Waterproofing use, so the trades never disagree on the building. The depth is seeded by the plan scan or the foundation type, and everything is editable.
No. True site cut/fill is a surface-to-surface comparison of the existing and proposed grade, and it needs contours, spot elevations, or a topographic survey. Vega has no source for either grade surface, so it does not pretend to. The foundation excavation volume is measured off the foundation plan — that is real geometry. Site-wide grading is priced off an explicitly-badged assumed area and cut depth that you set and can replace with your own takeoff.
Bank CY is in-place volume — the soil as it sits in the ground. You pay to dig bank volume. Loose CY is bank volume multiplied by a swell factor (default 35%), because soil expands the moment it leaves the ground. Trucks carry loose volume, so haul-off is billed on loose CY. The two are never interchanged: swelling the dig line, or not swelling the haul line, is a roughly 35% error in opposite directions.
Yes. Backfill is the ring around the foundation — the overdig gap between the excavation face and the foundation wall. A basement is not filled back in; it is the room. Only the ring gets backfilled, and what is left over (the void the building will occupy) is exactly what leaves the site. The estimate shows the ring backfill and the export volume separately so you can see where the dirt goes.
Yes. The haul-off volume is the export bank CY (what is left after the ring is backfilled) multiplied by the swell factor. It is priced per loose CY, and on a real basement it genuinely costs more than the dig — roughly 60 truckloads for a typical house. A long-haul surcharge is available for distant dumps, and a balance-on-site option removes the haul group entirely when the spoil is regraded on the lot.
Vega supports four soil conditions: standard soil ($8/CY), clay ($24/CY), rocky soil ($35/CY), and soil with large rocks ($50+/CY). The soil condition is a survey question because it drives a 2-4× cost swing and nothing on the plans can see it. The plan scan can seed a default from a geotech note, but an explicit answer always wins. Discrete boulder or ledge removal is a separate scope from rocky soil.
Yes, as a priced per-linear-foot line. Utility trenching is priced at $8.50/LF by default and covers dig, bed, lay, and backfill. The trench length is not read from the plans — you read the run off the civil utility plan and enter the linear feet in the breakdown. Vega does not calculate trench width, trench depth, trench CY, bedding volume, or pipe sizing separately; it is a single installed $/LF line.
Yes, as a priced per-linear-foot line. Site drainage (a French drain or surface drain) is priced at $17.50/LF by default and includes pipe and gravel. The drain length is user-entered. Note that the perimeter footing drain at the foundation belongs to the Waterproofing trade, not to this site-drainage scope — pricing it in both would bill it twice.
Vega supports four foundation types: basement, crawlspace, stem wall, and slab on grade. The foundation type sets the hole model — a basement or crawl is mass-excavated (the whole plate comes out), while a stem wall or slab is trenched (footing trenches plus a topsoil strip). The foundation type is inherited from Structural Concrete when that trade is selected, so the two trades ask the same question once.
Vega estimates bank slope as an editable dial, but does not price shoring. The default is a vertical prism — the report gives no slope figure, so none is invented. A cut deeper than 5 ft raises an OSHA 1926 Subpart P warning. You can set a laid-back bank slope (a 1½:1 bank is roughly 1.7× the volume) and the closed-form volume is exact. Shoring, trench boxes, and underpinning are not priced.
Excavation is priced per installed cubic yard, split into an equipment/material line and a labor line by a labor share (0.65-0.75). The equipment — the excavator and its operator — is inside the $/CY rate; itemizing it separately would bill the machine twice. A union labor toggle adds 20%. Backfill, haul-off, site grading, trenching, and drainage each have their own $/CY or $/LF rate, all editable.
The excavation estimate excludes dewatering for a high water table (a real, separate scope — warns when noted), true site cut/fill from a grading plan (the site-grading line is an assumed depth), sloped or benched banks beyond the dial, shoring and trench boxes, blasting, 811 utility locating, import fill when the site has no suitable backfill, paving, and the Flatwork sub-base. The perimeter footing drain belongs to Waterproofing. Structural Concrete and Waterproofing both explicitly exclude excavation and defer to this trade.
Excavation, Structural Concrete, and Waterproofing share the same foundation geometry — the outline that drives the concrete pour and the waterproofing membrane also drives the excavation volume — so the three trades never disagree on the building. Structural Concrete and Waterproofing both explicitly exclude excavation and defer to this trade. The excavation depth reuses the waterproofing scan's read of the below-grade wall height off the same wall section, and a disagreement between the two scans is surfaced rather than silently taken.
Yes. The foundation area and perimeter, the overdig, the dig depth, the soil condition, the hole model, the swell factor, the bank slope, the rock volume, the spoil disposal method, the site grading area and depth, the trench and drain runs, every $/CY and $/LF rate, the permit, survey, and testing fees, the contingency percentage, the access premium, the minimum fee, and the union toggle are all editable. Edits are saved as overrides and the whole estimate recomputes forward; clearing overrides restores the defaults.
See how Vega turns a foundation plan into bank CY, the ring backfill, loose haul-off, and a reviewable earthwork estimate.