Land Clearing and Forestry Mulching in Harrison, OH: Lot, Brush and Honeysuckle Clearing

Kettering Brush & Land provides land clearing in the Whitewater valley with tracked machines, because half the lots here have a slope a wheeled machine will not hold. Our land clearing service in Harrison covers brush clearing and honeysuckle mulching, selective clearing that leaves the oaks on the ridge, full site clearing to dirt with stumps out and rough grading, tree removal of dead ash, and stump grinding. Residential land clearing fills most of the year. Commercial land clearing services on commercial sites along I-74 and US 52 are the same machines on more days; residential and commercial properties get one insured crew. We pour no concrete, drill no wells, set no septic and knock down no houses. A professional land clearing service says what the ground will do before quoting it. Mud in Ohio is not a condition. It is a month.

Forestry mulching is a land clearing method that uses specialized equipment to grind trees, brush and vegetation into mulch where they stand, and on a ravine lot it is the only method that does not send the bank into the creek. The chips are mulched in place three inches deep and hold the slope through spring. Honeysuckle resprouts from the crown; the mulcher grinds the crown and a September treatment ends it. Tree-of-heaven is worse. Cut it without a stump treatment within minutes and it sends up fifty suckers by July. I've cleared honeysuckle since 2017, and the Whitewater stands are the thickest I have measured, so near Harrison the per-acre number runs at the top of the range. Overgrown land by the river will overgrow a path in one season. On our jobs in the valley the skid steer takes the benches and the 300-hp machine takes the dense pear and ash on the flats above.

The city issued 124 single-family permits in 2025 by the Census Building Permits Survey, the most of any municipality in Hamilton County, with Crosby Township and Cleves adding more along I-74. Lot clearing for a build is a half-acre a day with the skid steer, $2,500, or $1,700 flat on a quarter-acre infill lot. Site preparation covers stumps out, roots raked, rough grading set for drainage off the pad, and OUPS 811 called 48 hours ahead. Fourteen years building pads along I-71 taught me that fragipan is a floor: water sits on it at 20 inches, so the grade has to carry it off or the basement finds it. On a hillside lot the county earthwork permit applies before the first bucket, and we hold the cut until it is in hand. Commercial development along I-74 is the same site work on a bigger footprint.

Land clearing costs in Harrison run $1,200 to $5,000 an acre, and the valley sits toward the top because the honeysuckle is dense and the ground is steep.

• $2,500 a day for the skid steer forestry mulcher, stems to about 8 inches, transport included inside 60 miles.
• Dedicated 300-hp mulcher: $3,900 a day plus transport. Stems to 12 inches.
• Brush removal and honeysuckle by the acre: $1,200 thin to $2,000 thick.
• Woodlot understory with dead ash: $1,800 to 2,600 an acre.
• $2,800 to 5,000 an acre for full clearing to dirt, stumps out.
• Stump grinding at $4 an inch with a $150 minimum. Ten or more and we grind by the day.
• Grubbing and excavation with the excavator run $160 an hour with operator.
• Haul-off: $600 to 1,100 per 10-yard load.

Two things set the total: it depends on the size of the stems and on site conditions by month. Frozen ground, December to February, carries no mud surcharge and holds a machine on a slope that would slide in April. March and April add a day or we wait. Call (740) 729-8625 or send the form with photos and a rough acreage. I email you a budget range and two dates before the end of the day.

Inside city limits the Ohio EPA open burning rule, OAC 3745-19, bars burning land-clearing debris. On Crosby Township acreage the pile needs 1,000 feet from a neighbor's house, written notice to the Ohio EPA, and no daytime burning March through May or in October and November under ODNR Forestry. Most lots here are mulch or haul. Clearing needs no permit. A pad needs a Hamilton County Building Inspections permit in the townships, the city issuing its own inside the line, plus the township zoning certificate. This county is different on dirt: the county Soil and Water Conservation District issues an earthwork permit for land disturbance, with hillside review on steep lots, and at one acre the NPDES construction permit rides along. I wrote those plans in the pad years. Wet pockets on the fragipan flats can be isolated wetlands. Clearing is fine, fill triggers the Ohio EPA permit, and we walk the property and flag them with you first. The Whitewater and Great Miami are USACE Huntington District. For the Indiana bat, trees over 3 inches on tracts over an acre are cut between October 1 and March 31.

The Harrison area sits at the west edge of our 60-mile circle from Lebanon, so transport is included. We run land clearing services across the Cincinnati area west side: Cleves and Miamitown on the Great Miami, Okeana over the Butler line, and Colerain Township ravine lots. The same crews work across Greater Cincinnati and the rest of Southwest Ohio; five more counties sit on the Cincinnati metro pages. Large acreage clearing on a bottom farm runs the big machine for a week; property clearing on a ravine lot runs a day. Commercial clearing for commercial properties in Harrison and land improvement for a pond go on the same two dates my email names, depending on site access that month.

Call (740) 729-8625 or send the form with photos and a rough acreage. I email you a budget range and two dates before the end of the day. The free site visit starts the land clearing process; the day we leave the site with the chips on the slope ends it. Insured crews, prices in writing, the mud day and the bat window stated before the number. Every project.