# Is there a proper fill dirt for grading?



## Sonabi (Apr 19, 2008)

I just had a bunch of dirt taken out of my yard to lessen the slope leading towards my fence. I noticed that my neighbour needed a lot of fill dirt (about 12 loads). My landscaper and I asked if it would be alright to take the excess dirt from my yard (about 3 loads) and dump it in his yard as he needs dirt anyway. He agreed. Later in the week my neighbours landscaper tells him that the dirt from my yard was no good for fill. He called it mixed dirt it has some clay but a lot of dark top soil looking stuff mixed with rocks/stones. The neighbours landscaper claims that this can not be used as fill as the grass will sink when it rains because this dirt will turn to mud. To avoid any hard feelings with the neighbour I agreed to take it out of his yard and called my landscaper back in to get it out. The bad news is that my landscapers access threw another neighbours house was no longer available as they had finished their backyard and we could no longer run his larger Bobcat threw his yard. 

Now the problem is that we need to use our neighbours mini-bobcat to get it out from the back to the front yard and he wants to charge us 10 hours labour to do so $600. If we want him to get rid of the dirt he wants $4000 total because he claims that he can not get rid of it anywhere but the dump because it is not useful dirt. My landscaper said he would get rid of it from the front yard for $360 (all three loads) once it gets to the front. 

The dump truck driver that came to take it away looked at it and said it looks just fine to him and it looks like any other fill dirt he would dump on a new development. 

My question: Is there types of fill dirt that can not be used such as my "mixed dirt"? :huh: 

My neighbour claims that he was told if they use this dirt then his grade won't pass inspection. Is this possible?


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## concretemasonry (Oct 10, 2006)

Dirt is for growing things in if it has the right nutrients and does not react to wetting and drying. "Dirt" is just a meaningless backyard defintion with no standards expected.

Soil that is fill must be stable and able to hold a slope and not erode with rainfall. It should also be able to be compacted to make it more stable.


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## Sonabi (Apr 19, 2008)

The thing I don't understand is that he as the same dirt/soil as me on his yard now. Is the landscaper going to take away all of his dirt and then fill it all with clay and then top soil? I doubt it. I think he should be able to spread my dirt around his yard or under his deck and sides of the house where there will be no grass. He can still put the clay on top of it and then the top soil. Is this not correct?


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