Road Construction

All-weather access for wind and solar projects, pipeline routes, compression sites, and substations — from the public road to the pad. These roads are built to the loads in the civil design, including the crane walks and component deliveries that define wind-site road requirements, and sequenced so the road serves the construction schedule itself. The first thing built, and the last thing that can be allowed to fail.

Internal circulation roads, service drives, and truck routes for commercial developments, industrial sites, and data center campuses — built to the typical sections in the plans and coordinated with utility corridors so roads are not cut open for pipe that should have gone in first. Where the design transitions to concrete paving, aprons, or heavy-duty pavement, the work hands off cleanly to our commercial concrete scope.

Every road section is built from the bottom up: subgrade proof-rolled, unsuitable material removed and replaced, and moisture-density conditioning brought within specification before base placement. On expansive clay subgrades, lime treatment — mixed, mellowed, and compacted under our lime soil stabilization scope — converts a subgrade that moves with the weather into a working platform the base course can rely on.

Flexible base and caliche placed in controlled lifts, shaped to crown and cross-slope, moisture-conditioned, and compacted to the density the section calls for. Crown and cross-slope are not cosmetic — they are the road's first drainage system, shedding water to the ditches before it can soften the section. On unpaved energy-site and ranch-country roads, the finished caliche surface is the wearing course, so grade tolerance and compaction uniformity decide how the road rides and how long it lasts.

Culverts, safety end treatments, low-water crossings, and roadside ditches built where the road meets moving water. Cross-drainage is sized and located by the civil design; our job is building it at the right grade and armoring outlets so concentrated flow does not undermine the section it passes beneath. Ditch lines are cut to carry water away from the roadbed — the difference between a road that survives a West Texas storm and one that spends the next week being rebuilt.

It depends entirely on the loads and the lifespan. A ranch road that sees pickups can be a shaped, compacted caliche surface over sound native ground. A commercial circulation road or an energy-site access road that will carry loaded trucks, cranes, and component deliveries needs a designed section — subgrade treatment where soils demand it, base thickness matched to loading, and drainage that keeps water out of the structure. If your project has civil plans, the section is already designed and our job is to build it faithfully. If it does not, we will tell you plainly when the road you are describing needs an engineer before it needs a contractor.

Caliche is a carbonate-cemented gravel native to West Texas, and good pit-run caliche behaves like a natural flexible base: it binds tightly when moisture-conditioned and compacted, sheds water from a properly crowned surface, and can serve as its own wearing course on unpaved roads. Its weaknesses are variability and water. Material quality changes from pit to pit and within a pit, so source selection matters, and caliche placed too wet or too dry never develops its strength. Where the design specifies a graded flexible base with tighter gradation and plasticity limits, caliche may not qualify — the specifications govern, and we place what the section calls for.

The road section — subgrade treatment, base type and thickness, surfacing, and drainage — is designed by the project's civil engineer, typically from the geotechnical report's recommendations. Density and moisture verification during construction belongs to the owner's independent testing laboratory, which tests each lift against the specification and documents the results. TerraTek builds the section: preparing subgrade, placing and compacting each course, and shaping the drainage — and we schedule our lifts around the testing so verification happens as the road goes up, not after. Engineer designs, third party verifies, contractor builds; every road we price assumes exactly that structure.

Yes. Road packages are commonly bid separately on energy projects — access and collection-system roads on a wind or solar site, for example — and we price them that way, from clearing the alignment through finished surface and cross-drainage. The bundled alternative matters most when roads share a site with pads, utilities, and drainage: one contractor holding all of it means the road is not cut for a late utility crossing and the haul routes serve the mass grading plan instead of fighting it. That single-contract version of the civil scope is described under turnkey site development.

The road plan and profile sheets, typical sections, and the geotechnical report if one exists. For energy sites, add the delivery and crane-load criteria if the owner has issued them, because those loads drive the section. Send everything through our contact page with the project location and schedule. We return a scope response that covers sequencing, material sourcing assumptions — including caliche pit availability where relevant — stabilization and drainage inclusions, and stated exclusions. For early-stage projects without full plans, we can price from alignment maps and load assumptions and refine as the design firms up.