Grottoes, Virginia Call (540) 430-5600
A tracked excavator running a hydraulic breaker through rock on a wooded Virginia hillside.

Excavation, Drainage, and Property Maintenance across the Shenandoah Valley

Mid Valley Grounds is a veteran-operated, woman-owned outdoor contractor in Grottoes. Site work, septic and drainage, tree service, snow removal, and year-round Residential and Commercial property maintenance in Rockingham and Augusta counties.

Call (540) 430-5600 Request a Quote

Emergency and holiday services are available, including 24-hour emergency service if you call.

What We Do

Excavation, utilities, drainage, and demolition, listed by typical working depth.

  1. Abovegrade

    Land Clearing & Brush

    Overgrown lots, fence rows, and pasture edges. Cut with a forestry head, then chipped on site or hauled away.

    Excavator with a flail mower head cutting down tall overgrown grass.

  2. Abovegrade

    Demolition and Disposal

    Structural demolition including Sheds, outbuildings, old slabs, and stumps taken down and hauled off. Site is graded and cleaned up when the job is done.

    Kubota excavator pulling apart a small white outbuilding.

  3. At0 ft

    Concrete Flatwork

    Patios, stamped walks, equipment pads, and garage or shed slabs. Formed, set on a compacted gravel base, poured, and finished.

    Stamped concrete walkway curving from an asphalt edge toward a house, with grass and bare soil along both sides.

  4. Down to2 ft

    Drainage & French Drains

    Standing water, wet basements, and spring washouts. French drains, channel drains, downspout lines, and grade improvement and enhancement.

    New channel drain set in concrete along the foundation of a brick building.

  5. Down to3 ft

    Culverts & Driveways

    Driveway pipe and headwalls, ditch work, and gravel drives graded and crowned to shed water.

    Large corrugated culvert pipe bedded in an open trench beside a rural road.

  6. Down to5 ft

    Septic Systems

    Tanks, distribution boxes, and drain fields. New installs, and repairs on systems that are backing up or surfacing. Inspections and evaluations, with preventative maintenance. We service and install both conventional and alternative systems

    Concrete distribution box set in a trench with sealed pipe connections.

  7. Down to6 ft

    Water & Sewer Lines

    New service lines, laterals, replacements, and jetting for broken, root-choked, or undersized runs. Bedded, graded to fall, tied in, and backfilled.

    Green PVC sewer laterals running to a concrete junction box in an open trench.

  8. In theline

    Sewer Jetting and Camera Service

    Camera inspection of septic tanks, laterals, drain fields, and buried drains, plus high-pressure jetting to clear lines that are root-choked, silted, or packed with grease.

    Sewer camera monitor showing the inside of a pipe during an inspection.

  9. Down to10 ft

    Excavation & Grading

    Building pads, footers, basements, and rough grade. Hydraulic hammer work for stone excavation.

    Excavator running a hydraulic breaker through rock on a hillside cut.

Residential and Commercial Property Maintenance

Year-round work on the grounds: trees, leaves, and snow.

  • Elevated Services

    Tree Pruning, Commercial & residential exterior lighting, soffit, facia, and trim inspection. We own the bucket truck, elevated work does not wait on a rental.

    Mid Valley Grounds bucket truck with the boom raised beside a street light.

  • Leaf Collection

    Seasonal leaf pickup and haul-off from yards, drives, and ditch lines.

    Two crew members vacuuming leaves along a white fence into a dump trailer.

  • Snow Removal

    Driveways, lots, and walks. Residential and commercial plowing when the Valley gets snow.

    Orange Kubota track loader pushing snow off a residential driveway.

Questions about a job? Call (540) 430-5600

Process

How a Job Runs

  1. Step 1

    Phone Call

    Call and describe the job. Photos help if you have them. We use that to confirm it is work we do and to set a time to come out.

  2. Step 2

    Site Visit

    We look at the site, then you get the scope and the price estimate, including what happens if we find something unexpected: No one likes suprises.

  3. Step 3

    Job Start

    We begin with a filing with Virginia 811 (Miss Utility) three working days ahead on every job, then start on the scheduled date.

  4. Step 4

    Cleanup

    Backfilled, compacted, raked out; We take pride on our finished product. A quality job with an ugly site left behind isn't a quality job.

Job Photos

Recent Work

All photos are from our jobs. No stock photography.

  • Collapsed concrete retaining wall and debris between a brick house and a white house, before demolition.

    Before. Collapsed retaining wall taken down and hauled off. The ground graded between the houses.

  • The same side yard after the wall was removed and the ground graded, with a tractor at the back fence.

    After. Collapsed retaining wall taken down and hauled off. The ground graded between the houses.

  • Two crew members vacuuming leaves along a white fence into a dump trailer.

    Leaf collection along a residential fence line, vacuumed into the trailer.

  • Two green sewer lines running the length of a deep trench across a grass field toward a distribution box.

    Header pipe repair on a 60-year-old system, increasing lifespan and avoiding replacement.

  • Concrete distribution box with gasketed inlets and outlets, set level in a trench.

    Distribution box set at proper elevation and sealed to prevent leakage out of the septic tank before backfill.

  • Finished concrete slab in timber forms against the back of a house.

    Residential patio poured and floated on a gravel base and a broom finish.

  • Stamped concrete walkway curving from an asphalt edge toward a house, with grass and bare soil along both sides.

    Stamped concrete walkway.

  • Corrugated culvert pipe seated in a trench along a roadside.

    Driveway culvert bedded and graded with fall towards the drain swaile.

  • Channel drain and grate set in fresh concrete along a brick wall and paver walkway.

    Channel drain along a foundation that had been taking water at the door.

  • Bucket truck with the boom raised to the roofline of a brick house.

    Bucket truck at the roofline. We own the lift, so overhead work does not wait on a rental.

About

A Local Crew Based in Grottoes

Mid Valley Grounds LLC has worked out of Grottoes since November 2022. The town sits on the Rockingham–Augusta county line, which puts Harrisonburg, Staunton, Waynesboro, and Elkton all within about fifteen miles. We work the whole of both counties and throughout the Shenandoah Valley.

Veteran-operated, woman-owned, and insured. The person who answers the phone is the same person running the job.

Typical jobs include failing septic lines, driveways that wash out in the spring, land clearing, and site preparation. We also handle tree work, leaf collection, snow removal, and ongoing Residential and Commercial property maintenance.

Where a handshake is still a privilege and honor is a man’s word. We’ll get the job done!

Based in
Grottoes, VA
Working since
November 2022
Insurance
Insured - Q61-0443345
Operations
Brian Smallwood
Mid Valley Grounds Kubota KX057 excavator with the company logo and phone number on the cab, digging into a wooded slope.
Our KX057 on a hillside cut outside Grottoes.

Where We Work

Service Area

Grottoes sits on the Rockingham–Augusta line, so both counties are our service area. If you are just outside this list, call and ask.

Rockingham County

  • Grottoes
  • Port Republic
  • Elkton
  • Bridgewater
  • Mount Crawford
  • McGaheysville
  • Penn Laird
  • Keezletown
  • Dayton
  • Harrisonburg

Augusta County

  • Weyers Cave
  • Mount Sidney
  • New Hope
  • Crimora
  • Fort Defiance
  • Verona
  • Stuarts Draft
  • Churchville
  • Staunton
  • Waynesboro

FAQ

Common Questions

Do you handle emergencies and holidays?

Yes. Emergency and holiday services are available. For a 24-hour emergency, call (540) 430-5600.

How do I know my septic system is failing?

Common signs include slow drains and gurgling through the whole house at once, sewage backing up at the lowest fixture, soggy ground or unusually green grass over the drain field, and a smell outside after rain. Any one of those is worth a look before it becomes a drain field replacement.

Do I need a permit for a new driveway entrance?

If the entrance meets a state-maintained road, yes — VDOT requires a private entrance permit, and the property owner has to be the applicant, not the contractor. We will tell you what size pipe and what sight distance VDOT will be looking for so the application goes through the first time.

What does it take to get a septic permit here?

In Rockingham and Augusta the sequence is a soil evaluation by an AOSE, then a construction permit from VDH's Central Shenandoah Health District, then installation by a licensed installer, then a final inspection before it is covered up. The soil work drives the design, so that is the step to start with.

Why is drainage complicated in this part of the Valley?

Much of Rockingham and Augusta sits on karst limestone — Grand Caverns is here in Grottoes. Water can disappear into fractures and sinkholes instead of following the surface slope, and VDH looks more closely at septic siting because of it. A drainage fix that worked a few counties over may not work here.

Do you call Miss Utility?

Yes. Virginia law requires notifying Virginia 811 three working days before digging, and we file on every job, including small ones. Hitting an unmarked line is expensive and dangerous.

What happens if you hit rock?

Limestone is common in this area. We carry a hydraulic hammer and can usually break through, but rock changes the time on the job. That is written into the quote up front.

Contact

Request a Quote

Call with a description of the job. Photos help if you have them. We schedule a site visit from there, then send a written quote.

Call(540) 430-5600

Emergency and holiday services are available, including 24-hour emergency service if you call.

Or Send Details

The Last Word

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.