Connell Excavation

Fifty-one Google ratings, every one of them five stars — that is where Connell Excavation starts, and the reviews behind the number are unusually specific about what the crew actually does. The company says it was built from the ground up in 2003 by Kaden Connell, who came up through landscaping and bought and rebuilt used trucks and machines himself to expand into excavation. He runs it today alongside his father, Robert, a longtime construction and excavation hand. Home base is Haverhill, and the territory it claims is the Merrimack Valley and southern New Hampshire. Two threads run through the recent work. One is the emergency. In April a homeowner's main sewer line was backing up into the basement; Kaden and Rob came out after hours to assess it and had the repair finished the next day. Days earlier, a landlord with a collapsed sewer line on a rental described a fast arrival, a fair price, and a budget that held even after something unexpected turned up mid-job. The other thread is the built work. A retaining wall replacement in June, granite front steps and a wall in May, a new driveway wall and walkways a customer called beautiful, and a level pad cut into a sloped back yard for a 12-by-20 shed. Trenching shows up too — a run for a 200-amp electrical service upgrade, which the homeowner singled out as cautious, safe digging. What customers keep flagging is not the digging, it is the telling. A clear timeline up front, quick answers to questions, and no surprises on the quote or the schedule — that combination repeats across reviews from the small jobs to the messy ones. On an April drain replacement there were no city plans to work from; the crew dug carefully until they found the pipe, said what they were finding as they found it, and cleaned out the main line once the pipe turned out to be packed with sludge. That is the thing worth knowing before you call. This is excavation, and what is underground rarely matches the drawing. Customers describe Connell being straight with them when the scope moved, so ask for that same running commentary — in writing — on your own job. If you need a foundation dug, a sewer or water line replaced, a wall or driveway built, or water routed away from the house, and you are inside Haverhill, the Merrimack Valley or southern New Hampshire, this is a straightforward call. It is a small family crew, so ask about the calendar early.