Hi guys,

I was curious if there were any fellow pond owners in N.C. that could recommend a fair priced excavator/pond builder.

I am in Princeton NC and am looking to dig out a 1 acre pond or 1.5 if the cost prohibits. I’ve scoured the internet as well as some good articles on the subject and it looks like a fair price per acre is $5,000. I’ve reached out to 1 excavator in N.C. who hasn’t seen the property, but sent over his general pricing, which is somewhere in the $25,000 range, which seems extraordinarily high.

The pond is in flat land fed by a natural source and there is already a 1/8 or so acre pond in that spot.

Any advice or resources is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Sean

Welcome to the club. I cant help ya on prices around there. When I had mine dug the 1st time about 11 years ago. It cost around 1,500 or so 4 the pond. I had a lagoon and pond dug with some trees removed for a total of 2500 bucks. The pond was a little under 1/2 acre at the time.

Thanks! I think one of the cost differences is between someone who digs a hole and someone who spends additional time seeding and preserving the land for longevity and erosion into the pond as well.

I am going to start searching around some more, but references from those who have built in the area are definitely appreciated.

This fella just made the dam. Just dozed it far the shallow side to deep side. I have to much clay if that's possible to have. He didnt use sheeps foot just had to push the dirty to make a dam. So that might be why mine was so cheap also. Never really had a leak just evaporating it all I could til.

Time spent properly compacting soil with the proper equipment is worth lot of dollars especially if the final product leaks and has to be fixed if it is even possible. You definitely do not want to go there. Then the higher cost will seem like it was a good deal. Most of our pond construction questions here are how to fix leaks.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92487#Post92487

I agree with Bill. I just happened to have great soil conditions for a pond lots of clay. Perfect lay if the land going down from my house with gradual slope. So the hours he spent on my land was minimal in comparison to others.

I haven’t had a sample, but I’m guessing Cecil clay. I believe the small pond is native. There are also some small “puddles” on the land, so it must be clay to consistently keep those full.