Discover how Century Communities utilized data from TraceAir to find a creative alternative to exporting excess dirt.
For most homebuilders, extra dirt equals extra problems. Exporting dirt is not only time-consuming, but also expensive. 500,000 cubic yards of remedial grading could influence the balance by 50,000 cubic yards if the soil shrinks or bulks by even 10%. At an average of $25 per cubic yard to export dirt, this would cost the project over $1 million! Land development managers often do not learn they have excess dirt until the project is well underway, making it difficult to find alternative uses other than paying to export the dirt.
For Century Communities, excess dirt has always been a “solution-finding mission,” shared Stacia Bloom, Land Development Manager for Century Communities in Seattle. Founded in 2002, Century Communities, Inc. is a top-10 national homebuilder with a proven track record of profitable growth and success. In addition to building spectacular homes, Century Communities is also committed to environmental sustainability.
Century Communities uses TraceAir on all land development projects to manage site balance, progress, and improve communication. A land development platform for homebuilders and land developers, TraceAir helps measure, verify, and quantify progress of construction during the site work stage, significantly reducing budget and timeline uncertainty for developers, contractors and other parties involved in a project.
For most homebuilders, extra dirt equals extra problems. Exporting dirt is not only time-consuming, but also expensive. 500,000 cubic yards of remedial grading could influence the balance by 50,000 cubic yards if the soil shrinks or bulks by even 10%. At an average of $25 per cubic yard to export dirt, this would cost the project over $1 million! Land development managers often do not learn they have excess dirt until the project is well underway, making it difficult to find alternative uses other than paying to export the dirt.
For Century Communities, excess dirt has always been a “solution-finding mission,” shared Stacia Bloom, Land Development Manager for Century Communities in Seattle. Founded in 2002, Century Communities, Inc. is a top-10 national homebuilder with a proven track record of profitable growth and success. In addition to building spectacular homes, Century Communities is also committed to environmental sustainability.
Century Communities uses TraceAir on its projects to manage site balance, progress, and improve communication. A land development platform for homebuilders and land developers, TraceAir helps measure, verify, and quantify progress of construction during the site work stage, significantly reducing budget and timeline uncertainty for developers, contractors and other parties involved in a project.
Before TraceAir, Century Communities relied on best guesses and conventional topos for earthwork data. For Bloom’s branch in the Pacific Northwest, this was extra challenging due to remote job sites in heavily wooded areas. Conventional topos were expensive, time-consuming, and quickly became outdated as the project progressed — often leading to best guesses that were far from accurate. “Prior to TraceAir, we had very little understanding of our dirt situation and often had to travel several hours to put boots on the ground to check progress,” shared Bloom.
When Century Communities began their Glennwood community project in Poulsbo, Washington, the first thing they did was request a flyover from TraceAir. Unlike traditional aerial topos, which can take weeks to conduct and process, data from TraceAir is delivered within 24 hours of the flyover. With one click to turn on the cut/fill balance tool, TraceAir creates a heat map analyzing all the dirt on the project against the design grade. Additionally, any project plans or drawings are overlaid, making it easy to see exactly which areas have a shortage or excess of dirt. To achieve design grade, areas in red must be cut and areas in blue filled. Areas in white meet design grade plus or minus 0.4 feet.
After reviewing the cut/fill data from TraceAir, Century Communities not only discovered that they’d have excess dirt at the end of the project, but also that the area designated for the playground had a hole-sized dirt deficit. A solution-finding mission to balance the site began.
“We went to the local jurisdiction and showed them our TraceAir cut/fill balance reports. We presented them with two options,” said Bloom. “We could proceed as planned, haul the excess dirt offsite, or we could use the fill dirt to put the park up on a plateau, making it more visible to the homes in the neighborhood. As soon as they saw the data from TraceAir, they agreed raising the park was a better use of the dirt.”
Regular flyovers combined with TraceAir’s powerful software allowed Century Communities to accurately provide fill dirt to all areas in need and send the remaining dirt to the playground area. The project balanced itself, and no dirt needed to be imported or exported. “Not only was this a huge cost and time savings,” shared Bloom, “but overall it really made the entire project so much better.” Additionally, keeping all the dirt in its natural location and eliminating the need for trucks to haul the dirt aligned with Century Communities’ commitment to environmental sustainability.
TraceAir is accessible from anywhere, enabling project managers to keep an eye on dirt movement and project progress without being onsite. TraceAir provides unlimited licenses so that anyone with access can view project data—eliminating discrepancies, making it easy to obtain information, and improving collaboration. Century Communities shares their TraceAir scans data with their corporate team, local jurisdiction, stakeholders, contractors, and others involved with their projects. They also share their 360-degree panoramic images with project neighbors to keep them informed.
TraceAir takes great pride in providing top-notch customer support to all of our clients. Each client has a dedicated Customer Support Manager to help them get set up and train them on all of TraceAir’s capabilities. Bloom worked with TraceAir Customer Success Lead, Isabella (Izzy) Knori, to set up her projects. “I know it was a huge undertaking onboarding all of our projects with TraceAir. Izzy’s willingness and attitude throughout our entire process was admirable,” shared Bloom. “She embraced all of us and all of our questions along the way. We feel extremely lucky and thankful to have worked with her.”
Integrating TraceAir into its workflows has drastically simplified Century Communities’ processes, enabling the company to save time and money. TraceAir allows their whole team to make informed and timely decisions, and effectively bridges the gap between the field and the office. Century Communities utilizes TraceAir on all of its land development projects.
With TraceAir, Century Communities is able to:
If you’re looking for a way to achieve site balance, stay on schedule, track progress remotely, and improve communication and collaboration, TraceAir is for you.
To learn how your projects could benefit, request a demo today.
