Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Renting/Buying Equipment

Any advice on renting a trackhoe/excavator to dig a half acre pond? I've gotten quotes to hire it out, and now am considering renting the equipment and doing it myself. Can just anyone rent an excavator? A dozer alone won't work for me in my pond site - I would need an excavator.

I would also consider buying one, then selling after the job was done. How difficult are they to operate? I haven't been in anything even remotely that large, but I imagine that would be fun! What about maintenance?

If I went the buy route, how big an excavator? I would like to get down to 15' depths.

I have done both rented and bought equipment. The biggest gamble you run with buying a piece of used equipment is that something expensive will break but if you don't break something expensive you can probably sell it for what you bought it. Running the equipment is fun at first but after about fifty hours it becomes work. When I first bought my dozer I ran it all the time but now I would rather fish than dig or knock down trees.

Do you have experience running excavating equipment, NTCPA? I really enjoy it myself, but one indisputable fact is that my excavator is 5-10 times faster and (at least) 2-4 times more accurate than I am. Fer instance, he can use a hoe to clean dirt off of a surface that I would (rightly) be afraid to get closer than a few inches to.

For smaller jobs (ditching) it may pay me to rent. Bigger work I have no qualms that hiring out is the right way for me to go.

Lots of do it yourself equipment discussions right now. If you paln to only do one project, if you have time to do it start to finish all at once, then I'd definitely rent. I own a dozer and I've rented other stuff. Heavy equipment is expensive to fix but that cost can be outweighed by convenience if you want to do many projects over time or want to take all summer to build a pond. I rented a 36,000 pound excavator, 2 yard bucket with 36 foot reach for $250 per day. I dug non stop during daylight from the time it arrived until the project was done and I'll never have to fix that machine myself. If it broke I'd be out nothing but not getting my project done. On the other hand it would be nice to have the machine around so I can work on project any time I please. Not worth it for a machine that big. Any kind of repair would cost thousands. I'll rent the bigger stuff.

I second the rent vs. buy conundrum. If you don't know what you are looking at to buy, and something breaks, then it could get really expensive in a hurry. Fer instance, a buddy's neighbor bought an excavator and the hydraulic pump went bad. $8,000.00 for a rebuilt pump! If you get a good piece of equipment, then it would be worth it, the price of the equipment would probably cost what the pond would cost to build, not to mention the added expense of fuel, grease, and other equipment needed to move the dirt from where the excavator piles it to it's final resting place.

My pond was renovated with a komatsu PC200 I believe - see pics in "My Pond Renovation" thread. He bought it for 30K, ended up rebuilding the hydraulic pump that drives the tracks, replacing all the hydraulic oil, replacing the starter, 3 hoses and this Spring he replaced the drive sprockets on the tracks.

The local heavy equipment rental place will rent almost the same machine (a KM PC228 22' dig depth, 54,000# with a 36", 42", 48", or 54" bucket) rents for $5400 a month. Or you could get a KM PC308 or Hitachi ZX350LC-3 (24'-10" or 27' dig depth and weight of 73 to 82K) for $8900/mo.

no matter what you get, you'll need a diesel tank to fuel the equipment. I went thru approx 900 gallons of diesel last year in the pond renovation.

I second the fact that after a week or 2 of sitting in the seat moving dirt it gets a bit tiring.....

I would not buy any equipment unless you know how to fix it. I have a dump truck and a full size backhoe and I kknow a $5000 repair is only one pull of the joystick away at any time.

Some hydraulic hoses cost many hundreds of dollars and pumps cost thousands if you have the bad luck to have one fail while you own the machine. What if the tracks come off your dozer or excavator, do you have to means to repair them? If the answer is no then dont buy.

When you rent an excavator its about $2.5k a week up here, plus you may need insurance and pay to have it delivered. If something breaks the rental company will fix IF the damage is from no fault of your own. Accidentally grab the tracks with the bucket (very easy to do when on unfamiliar equip) and you are out a couple grand.

On top of this when you figure a pond you dig may be a jacked up hole in the ground as opposed to what an experienced pro would do, I would recommend against buying or renting for an inexperienced user.

I have had to help put tracks on dozers several times. It will make you hate anything that is colored yellow.

I can't afford heavy equipment. The stuff that won't break down is out of my price range. The stuff that is going to break down becomes out of my price range real quick.

In the last 25 years, I've had dozers on my place 7 or 8 times. Only 2 haven't broken down or threw tracks. One was a new D6 and the other was an ancient D5 owned by a guy that was also ancient.

If you bought or rented and excavator, what would you do with the dirt you dug?

If you dig and dump the dirt right next to the pond, then you will still need a dozer to spread it out. If you need it hauled any distance at all, then you will need a dump truck to move it and a dozer to spread it out. While it's possible to do all this yourself, it's very time consuming. When renting equipment, time is the enemy. You are allowed so many hours on that rental, so you really want to get all of them that you paid for. If you are spending your time also running the dump truck, then it's real hard to get any digging done and be effective with the excavator. And to be really efficient, you want to have a dump truck next to the excavator all the time, which means two or three dump trucks.

You can spread the dirt any time, so that can wait until the digging and moving of the dirt is done, unless you need it for the dam. Then you really want the dozer working with the dump trucks to get it spread out and compacted in gradual lifts.

An experienced crew makes this look simple. They do it all the time and don't even think about it. A beginner will spend allot of wasted time on the learning curve. While it's all simple and easy enough to do yourself, experience will save allot of time and money from hour one. Depending on your ability to learn new things, adjust to the machine and get better as you go, it might take all week, all month or maybe never to get decent at it. My Dad loves to come out and work my machines. He tries real hard, but after years and years of trying, he just doesn't get it and only go to a point that he can do certain things at a certain level. He tries real hard, sticks with it and is very proud of what he's accomplished, but he's never going to get any better then where he's at right now. Fortunately, I can work with this and still get allot accomplished with what he can do. I'm also lucky that he's very good at some things and those are what I have him do when he's here helping out.

Like anything, if you stick with it, you'll get it done. It's just a matter of having the time to do it on your own.

Good luck,
Eddie

This machine was rented. I'm glad I didn't own it. Still good for a laugh.

That picture is my greatest fear!

if yer still looking for opinions here's mine..i'll try and spin this in a little different light....

project 101.....all projects can be broken down to scope, budget, time (and well, talent..).

limiting factors......of the above, which do you have the least of? the most of? which can you sacrifice the most? what skill levels relative to the project do you bring to the table? considering these things, detailed planning will dictate the path you take.

i had a defined scope in mind and tight schedule, which usually means high $$ to accomplish. recognizing i had limited skills on heavy equipment, i bid out my pond job and was blown away by the $$. $30k to over $50k to renovate an existing approx. 1 acre pond, but i didnt have to lift a finger except to write checks. so that blew the budget. next option, tweak the scope and schedule and rent for less. fortunately i have one particular friend who really wanted to help and nudged me into renting. because of my business, fortunately here again i was able to set up an account to rent from the big boys (holt of CA) who i realized could back up the maintenance and any issues w/ their equipment.

once the account was set up, a CAT 320C w/ 4 ft bucket and thumb, and a new CAT D4 were delivered to my property and we went to work.....my buddy on the track hoe and me on the dozer (after several hrs of training). i also hired a local dozer operator part time on the project who gave me a deal, he had little pond building experience but i had used him years before and knew i could work w/ him....this ended up being very fortunate for my situation because he could fix my mess as i had no finishing/grading skills on a dozer. so 1/2 day into the project the hydraulic ram on the track hoe died spewing hydraulic oil everywhere. this ended up being an $8500 repair fixed by holt w/ no questions asked and no charge to me. we were back up and running the next morning. the equipment costs went about $12k for 2.5 weeks of time on which 160 hrs was put on the track hoe. i dont think holt made much on the deal, but they are large enough to absorb such problems.

perhpas yer scope is broad, yer schedule is undefined, and you have lots of money. perhaps you are mechanically inclined and a good operator. than the story i just told means little to you. go buy the equipment and have a blast.

either way good luck and keep us posted on yer journey.

Nontypical,
Lots of good input regarding renting/buying. Another thing that needs to be considered as a component of time is how long is your dry season and what are your time constraints during that time? I chose to buy my equipment for several reasons with the most important being that I wanted to do it myself. I also like the convenience of being able to use the equipment any time I want to.

If you look at the money side of it it comes down to time constraints as well. If you rent, you need to keep the machine working as much as possible. Eddie is right, one piece of equipment will not dig a pond very fast. Ideally you need to be able to dig, move/haul, and spread dirt which can't easily be done with one machine unless a very small pond. It would have been smarter do hire my work done but I enjoy the work in progress even though it does get old in the hot summer.

I have been on my projects for 3 years now and will list the larger repair items I have hired out:

Two used scraper tires
Dozer undercarriage (First dozer I bought, I got burned. Second dozer I took a track guy with me)
Dozer steering clutches and brakes
Swing motor seal kit on excavator

I have changed several hydraulic hoses, starter, alternator, changed oil, boiled out radiator, batteries, etc.

As you can see it would have been smarter to hire the work done but that is not how I wanted to work it. It just depends on your goals, time, and your budget.

Craig

Hey guys, thanks for all the great responses. I think I'm back to hiring out the job. As much as I would like to crawl into a excavator and dig a big ole hole in the ground, I don't think I've got the time to commit to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time (family/work), not to mention no experience in anthing that big. I'll just have to stick to my 40hp kubota for my dirt playing.

If you're really lucky, maybe your excavator will let you help. We get to run the vibrating sheepsfoot roller. I got to drive the skidloader once, too.

Did he charge you extra for you helping?

Like, $100/hr. If you help, 150$.

No. He didn't have to hire another operator, or switch back & forth. On the last dam, we were running two dozers full time and the sheepsfoot about 70% of the time doing the core. So Fish Wife and I were able to keep the dozers free by compacting.

That must have been gratifying, Theo. I wish I'd have insisted on a sheepsfoot. But needed to git her done before the rains came last Sept 07..

Now there's an idea! Where do you dirt guys usually hide your keys?

[quote=NonTypicalCPA
Now there's an idea! Where do you dirt guys usually hide your keys? [/quote]

ebay.........

I wouldn't feel bad about hiring it done NonTypicalCPA. The plain truth is that anyone will a little bit of instruction can jump on a heavy piece of equipment and dig a hole and move dirt around.

What comes with years of experience is knowning how to do that efficiently, where to take dirt from and move it to in order to minimize equipment run time and additionally and perhaps even more important (at least IMHO) is to make the end product look natural. To contour the soil such that it looks like it (the pond, the building pad, etc) has always been there. That takes someone that really knows what they are doing. Good dirt movers can walk onto a property and see the contour lines and will begin formulating a plan as to how the project would come together. It's an art.

Let's not forget how quick you can kill yourself with heavy equipment. All that power can hurt you in a heartbeat!