How We Set These Ranges
Last reviewed 2026-09-28.
Where the numbers come from
Each range comes from price guides that businesses published online, read in September 2026. Very few are specific to New Brunswick, so most are national or Atlantic figures, and each page says so. We never use a single company's price as "the" price, and we do not name the businesses the ranges come from.
Why machine time comes first
Hourly rates for an excavator with operator were the best-published figures we found: about $65 to $150 an hour for a mini excavator and $150 to $250 for a standard machine. Most of the jobs on this site are quoted from machine hours plus trucking and material, so those are the lines each planner asks you to see in writing.
When we publish no number
Where we found too few prices, the page says so. That covers trench prices by the metre, clearing by the acre, haul-away per load and blasting. We give no pool-dig planner because we found only one published price.
Fixed figures
Fees are quoted from the body that sets them: Moncton's and Fredericton's curb cut fees, Quispamsis's residential sewer and water meter connection fees, the provincial WAWA permit fee and the septic approval application fee. Check with the town or province before you rely on a fee, because fees change.
Where the rules come from
Trench and excavation rules come from WorkSafeNB's General Regulation 91-191; the inspection before backfill and the start notice from Regulation 2021-2; locate notice periods from Info-Excavation and NB Power; the 30-metre rule from the province's Watercourse and Wetland Alteration pages; septic licensing and approval from the On-site Sewage Disposal System Regulation and the province's program pages; and the holdback from the Construction Remedies Act. Town rules are listed only where we read them on the town's own pages.
What a range is, and is not
A range is where published prices land. It is not a quote for your lot: rock, access, soil, haul distance and season all move the price. Use the range to decide what to ask, and compare quotes line by line.