Quick answer
Dig Out WNY handles excavation, demolition and construction in the Town of Amherst, NY, for homeowners, builders and businesses. That covers foundation digs for new houses and additions on the town's clay soils, sewer and drainage corrections flagged by the town's Time of Sale inspection, grading and driveway work, and tear-downs of houses, garages and pools. Call or text (716) 444-6613 for an estimate.
Amherst sits on both sides of a limestone ledge. The Onondaga Escarpment runs parallel to Route 5, and the ground changes across it: glacial till and rock that can sit close to the surface on the south side, deep lake-bottom silt and clay on the north. Which side your lot is on decides how the hole behaves once it's open, how far down solid footing is, and what the Building Department wants on paper before anyone digs.
We're a locally owned crew doing excavation, demolition and construction for Amherst homeowners, builders and businesses. We answer our own phone, and nobody here quotes a job without walking it first, because a parcel on the old Peanut Line rail corridor and one near a Main Street crossroads are not the same dig. Tell us what you're planning and we'll tell you what the ground and the Town are likely to ask of it.
Two kinds of ground on either side of Main Street
The Town of Amherst is an Erie County town whose northern line is Tonawanda Creek, the boundary with Niagara County; part of that creek is channelized as the New York State Barge Canal. The Village of Williamsville lies within the town's borders. Snyder and Eggertsville grew up as crossroads hamlets on Main Street, while Getzville grew along the narrow-gauge Peanut Line railroad.
South of the escarpment, the soils and foundation study the Town ran with the Army Corps describes mostly glacial till, with bedrock often shallow along and just south of the ledge. Ellicott Creek drops some 60 feet in Williamsville, where it crosses the ledge. North of it is the bed of glacial Lake Tonawanda: silty clay and silty clay loam, with rock usually more than 10 to 20 feet down. The study traced a very soft silty clay, called the "peanut butter" or "gumbo" layer, that starts anywhere from 3 to 35 feet below grade where it shows up, and rated the lake soils moderately to highly expansive. Tonawanda Creek falls only about three feet per mile across northern Amherst, so water on these flat, slow-draining lots tends to sit. Much of Ransom Oaks, Audubon and the SUNY Buffalo lands were declared flood hazard areas in the 1970s.
The housing tells a similar story. Census estimates count about 55,800 housing units in the town: roughly 31 percent were built before 1960, nearly half before 1970, and the 1960s and 1970s were the two busiest building decades. Postwar building started in the southern half of town and moved north between the 1940s and 1960s, and the construction of UB's North Campus in the late 1960s turned the middle of town suburban. Most houses the study found with foundation damage sit north of Main Street on those lake soils.
Services in Amherst
What we do in Amherst
Each part of town pulls a different mix of our services. On the lake plain north of Main Street, that means new home construction and foundation and basement excavation built around a soils report. In the older neighborhoods it's sewer connection and lateral work ahead of a sale, and demolition of houses and outbuildings that are past saving. Grading, driveway bases, utility trenches and yard drainage fill in around all of it. The three sections below cover where the Amherst version of each job differs.
Demolition & Removal
Excavation & Earthwork
Building & Foundations
Sewer, Water & Utilities
Driveways & Finish Work
North of the escarpment: borings, backfill and an old mine
North of the Onondaga Escarpment, the Building Department won't issue a foundation permit for a new house or a lateral addition until there is at least one soil boring and a geotechnical analysis. Its 2015 foundation memo sets the boring at the greater of 15 feet below the planned footing or down through any soft layers to competent soil. On the face of the escarpment or above it, a hand-auger test, geoprobe or test pit can stand in for the boring, but the rest of the geotechnical report is still required.
That report drives the excavation. We dig to the footing depth and bearing layer the engineer sets, and we pay attention to what goes back against the wall. If the plan calls for silt or clay as backfill, the memo has the geotechnical engineer estimate the lateral earth pressure and the designer certify the wall for it. Free-draining backfill placed in lifts, with footing drains carried to a sump instead of the sanitary sewer, keeps water from building up against the wall.
One more local wrinkle: gypsum was mined about 70 feet underground in southeast Amherst from 1925 to 1976. The Town's soils study records a Building Department policy of treating lots in the Maple, Ayer, Klein and Transit roads area as sitting over the mine unless engineering shows otherwise. If your new build is there, ask the Building Department how that policy applies before the first bucket.
Selling a pre-1965 house? What the I&I inspection digs up
Amherst's Time of Sale law requires a sanitary sewer inspection before title transfers on residential property with a structure built before 1965, if it's in the Town's Consolidated Sewer District. The Village of Williamsville and homes served by Erie County Sewer District No. 5 are outside the program. The Town is under a state consent order to cut inflow and infiltration, the rain and groundwater that end up in sanitary pipes.
Many of the usual corrections involve digging, inside the basement or out in the yard:
- footing drains or basement floor drains tied into the sanitary line get cut off and sent to a sump system
- roof drains and downspouts come off the sewer and discharge to the lawn or to an underground run that ends in a bubbler outlet
- yard drains and catch basins connected to the sanitary side get rerouted
- pipe defects that let groundwater in get dug out and repaired
The Town's page says installing backflow valves, bubblers, drain tile or sump pumps takes a plumbing permit from the Building Department, and that corrections may be done by a qualified homeowner or a plumber holding a Town of Amherst license. Our part is the excavation, trenching and putting the yard back around that permitted work. Book the inspection early, since Town Code expects repairs finished before closing unless a waiver is filed.
Taking down an older house or garage in Snyder or Eggertsville
The town built outward from its Main Street hamlets, so the older houses and garages tend to be found near them, and many predate 1974. That year matters. Under Part 56 of the state Labor Department's rules in Title 12 of the state code, a building needs an asbestos survey before demolition unless work on the original structure started January 1, 1974 or later, or another narrow exemption fits, and even an exempt building stays under federal EPA and OSHA inspection rules. The Town's demolition procedure puts that compliance on the owner or their agent.
The same Building Department check sheet lists what has to be in hand before a demolition permit issues:
- the owner's written OK and a survey showing the building coming down
- letters from the utilities confirming gas, electric and water are shut off and disconnected, which the Town checks itself
- a plumbing permit to disconnect and cap the sanitary and storm sewer (a septic tank gets pumped and filled with stone or sand)
- a letter from an exterminator holding a state DEC license, for work on the exterior shell
Afterward every hole and depression is brought back up to grade using clean fill that's compacted, tanks are emptied, cleaned and removed (an underground tank left in place gets filled with inert material), and all rubble leaves the site. Knocking down only a detached building out back? The garage tear-down page covers slab removal and the pad left behind.
Who signs off on digging and demolition in Amherst
Outside the Village of Williamsville, building, foundation and demolition permits come from the Town of Amherst Building Department, headed by the Commissioner of Building. The Time of Sale sewer program belongs to the Town's Engineering Department, which schedules the inspections and keeps a copy of each Certificate of Compliance on file. That program doesn't reach into the Village, and a lot inside village limits should be checked with the Village before you assume Town rules apply; our Williamsville page covers that side.
Before any non-emergency excavation or demolition, New York's Code Rule 753 requires notice to UDig NY, the one-call center (dial 811), inside a window that opens ten working days before the start date and closes two working days before it; the call day itself doesn't count. A demolition also needs a pre-demolition conference with the utilities, requested through the same system at least seven working days before work starts. Forms, fees and inspection steps change, so have the Town of Amherst Building Department confirm what applies at your address before anything is scheduled.
Questions & answers
Questions from Amherst homeowners
Do I need a soil boring before building a house in Amherst?
North of the Onondaga Escarpment, yes; elsewhere in town a lighter soil test can take its place. The Building Department's foundation memo calls for at least one boring and a geotechnical analysis for each new house or lateral addition on the lake plain, taken 15 feet below the footing or through any soft layers to competent soil, whichever is deeper. On the face of the escarpment or above it, a hand-auger test, geoprobe or test pit is accepted. The engineer's findings then shape the footing design and the backfill we place.
Does the Time of Sale sewer inspection apply to my Amherst house?
It does if the house has a residential structure built before 1965 and sits in the Town's Consolidated Sewer District. The inspection happens before title transfers, and the Town issues a Certificate of Compliance once any problems are corrected. Properties in the Village of Williamsville or served by Erie County Sewer District No. 5 are outside the program. If footing drains or floor drains feed the sanitary sewer, they have to be disconnected and redirected to a sump.
Can we close on an Amherst house before the sewer repairs are done?
Sometimes, through a temporary waiver from the Town Engineer. The request has to come in no later than 10 working days before closing, with an itemized quote from a plumber holding a Town of Amherst license. Seller and buyer file a waiver agreement to finish the corrections within 90 days of closing or whatever period the Town Engineer sets, and the buyer posts a guaranty with the Town. Miss that window and the waiver expires. Getting the digging scheduled early avoids the scramble.
What is the 'peanut butter' clay layer under parts of Amherst?
It's a very soft, wet silty clay that a soils study the Town ran with the Army Corps found in most borings across central and northern Amherst. The study put the change to soft clay anywhere from 3 to 35 feet down, averaging about 12 feet along the old Peanut Line rail corridor. Above it sits stiffer clay, and a boring shows the change as a drop in blow counts, sometimes sudden, along with a rise in moisture. The Town's boring rule is written to go through layers like this one to firm soil.
Does a detached garage in Amherst need a soil test first?
Not always. The Building Department's foundation memo lets a detached accessory building go up without a soil analysis if the soil contact pressure is held to 2,000 pounds per square foot or less and the foundation is reinforced with structural steel. An attached garage gets the same pass at 1,500 pounds per square foot or less. Miss either condition and soil data comes back into the picture, so your designer sizes the footing with those limits in mind.
Is digging in Getzville different from digging near Snyder?
Often, yes. Snyder grew up on Main Street near the escarpment, where the Town's soils study describes till and rock that can be shallow along and just south of the ledge. Getzville grew along the Peanut Line, a corridor the study found sits entirely on lake deposits, with rock generally more than 10 to 20 feet down, and about half its borings hit a wet sandy layer sitting on clay. That changes how trench walls stand, how much pumping a dig needs and what the footing design has to allow for.
Service areas
Other towns we serve
The same crew and the same approach across Erie and Niagara counties.
Sources and further reading
- Town of Amherst Engineering Dept.: Time of Sale Law (I&I sewer inspection) (opens in a new tab)
- Town of Amherst Building Dept.: foundation requirements memo (June 8, 2015) (opens in a new tab)
- Town of Amherst / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Soils and Foundation Stability Study, Section 1 (opens in a new tab)
- Town of Amherst Building Dept.: Procedure for Demolition of Buildings check sheet (opens in a new tab)
- US Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024, Table B25034: Year Structure Built, Amherst town (opens in a new tab)
- Town of Amherst: Updated Reconnaissance Level Survey of Historic Resources (opens in a new tab)
- UDig NY: NYS Code Rule 753 (16 NYCRR Part 753) full text (opens in a new tab)
Planning a dig or a tear-down in Amherst?
Text or call (716) 444-6613, or send the estimate form. Share the soils report or inspection form if you have one, and we'll come look.