Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Building my own pond?

Hello my name is Tim, I'm from mid-Michigan, and I am new to this forum. I am in the process of getting quotes for a relatively small pond dug, 60 ft in diameter round pond in my backyard. After thinking about it, I'm wondering if I could do it myself; rent equipment dig it out, disperse soil throughout my 12 acres, and be done with it since it will be a small pond (and save a ton of money). My goal is to have a pond that we can swim in, 10-15 ft deep, and stock bluegills and bass.

Is this job easier than I think, harder than I think? I just started looking into this so if this sounds off the wall my apologies.

Thanks!

Congrats- you found the right place for great info and great people.

From my experience, I have a total of 4 ponds all being dug outs. They range from 1.5 to .25 acres. I am a huge do it your selfer but didn't even think twice about renting equipment and doing it on my own. IMHO -Anybody can dig a hole but it takes a lot of knowledge and a very experience digger to construct a pond. I never completed the cost comparison but I would bet from the mistakes and time saved using experienced operators it was equal in cost and twice the quality of work.

That was my fear. I have a quote of $2,300 for a 60ft diameter pond at 10-12 feet. Is that fair do you think?

Also, will a pond that size hold fish (gills & bass)?

Thanks again and I look forward to roaming this site for ideas once we 100% decide to get the pond dug.

As far as the cost is concerned and being fair, I'm not qualified to answer that. Its very region dependent and operator experience dependent. Hopefully someone from your region chimes in here.

FWIW, and since you are still deciding to built a pond or not, realize now that to build and maintain a pond, of any size, it takes time, work, and expense. EVERY year. Not do differnet from having a really nice lawn.

For me like a lot of others on here, I love this hobby so much it consumes me. When people ask me how much I've spent, I tell them I would have spent 4 times the amount.

As far as a .064 acre pond holding fish, absolutely possible.

It would hold fish but the carrying capacity of a pond that small would be very. The populations of BG and "bass" (largemouth or smallmouth?) could very easily overtake the pond and create a mess.

How much experience do you have moving dirt? How much experience do you have in building ponds? All factor to take into consideration.

It would be nice to have both large and smallies, if possible. What do you mean a mess?

I have 0 experience moving dirt or digging ponds, and that is my worry. If I knew someone with great excavating experience but has never dug a pond, would that suffice do you think? Or is there a lot more to it than digging a hole and letting it fill up?

Thanks!

That's a 2 part question (or at least a 2 part answer to that question).

Digging the hole is the easy part. Letting it fill back up is the hard part. There's a LOT of dirt diggers out there, very few pond builders. I'll bet 40% of the poeple that visit this site do so because their ponds either won't hold water, or did at one time and now don't. Another 40% has a weed or algae problem, and other 20% is all over the board.

Before you start talking to dirt movers, buy the book "Perfect Pond - Want One?" and read it. That'll help you determine if the dirt guys know what they are doing or not.

There's all sorts of things to consider. Amount of watershed, pong bank slopes, soil type, etc., etc. We can furnish a lot of help. It's more expensive to re-do a leaky pond than it is to do it right the first time.

That is a good point. The quote I received for $2300 for a 60 ft diameter pond was from a guy that only does ponds, just want to make sure that is "reasonable".

$2300 is reasonable I think considering the delivery charge for the machines, and the approx $1000 a day to run them with an experienced person using them.

If I were you, and you have the space, I would make it larger around since to hit your depth the sides will need to be very steep. It will look like a bomb crater. Get the book mentioned, and be prepared to spend the money correctly the first time, rather than several times and a lot more to get it right.

We are here to help you get a pond you want, is usable, and not a source of anxiety.

How does your pond builder propose to build this pond? There has to be some detailed specifications in their proposal that they are offering.

The Nuts-N-Bolts of it all.

A good sized machine can dig a hole that size fairly quick. The efficiency of moving the dirt from the pond to where it needs to go is where you win or loose. You want a track hoe digging and filling a dump truck, then a second truck ready to pull in when that one pulls out. That way your not paying for a machine that's waiting for a truck. Secondly you move the dirt only once.

The last time I did some work I hired a team of two guys, a track hoe and two trucks. The truck diver would back the empty truck next to the one being loaded then jump in the loaded one and empty it. So he kept dropping off the empty truck and taking the full one. The hoe never stopped filling trucks. Its all about yards moved per dollar spent.

Don't just have a hole dug and leave the piles to move later, it cost more in the long run. See if you can get a per hour rate on the two truck, two man system. Then spend the money to get the pond the size you want, or spend what your budget is in hours and see how you end up.

I got six estimates for the pond I had dug last summer. The guy I ended up using was the last estimate I got. Just some food for thought.

Down in my neck of the woods, a contractor will normally build a pond for 2 or 3 bucks per cubic yard. Your quote is quite reasonable down here. Up there, I don't know.

I noticed you said 60 ft wide and 15 ft deep. If you do these dimensions, your side slopes are going to be very steep. Once the pond fills and the slopes are saturated, you will likely have problems keeping the sides from sliding and filling the bottom. The smallest circular pit type ponds I do are 100' wide, 3.5:1 side slopes and 10' deep. That comes out to be around 1200 a 1300 cubic yards. It also gives the dozer about 30' diameter flat area in the bottom to maneuver in.

Like was stated above, none of this matters if you don't have a suitable watershed. Make sure you have adequate drainage area (but not too much!) to keep the pond full. Don't want to be left with an empty crater!

Thank you for all of the replies.

JKB: We have 12 acres behind our home but almost all of it is wooded. So in making the pond bigger, we would need to take some trees out, unless we wanted our entire backyard to be a pond, which we don't; and taking trees out will cost more money I'm assuming, on top of the added cost of simply making it bigger.

Woodster: That sounds like an efficient way to do this. However, after talking to you guys here I've almost completely decided to go through a contractor to assure the job is done correctly.

Dan Fischer: I plan on getting 2 more quote on top of the one I currently have, thank you.

Hogfan: Glad to hear from multiple people on here that the quote I received is reasonable. As far as the depth, the contractor actually told me 10-12 feet with that diameter, but I was going to ask for 15. My wife and I are on a tight budget and the quote he gave us for a 75ft pond ( the smallest pond he typically digs) was $3,500, and that was out of our price range, so he said a 60 footer is definitely doable and would hold fish, and good for swimming.

As far as the specs on the quote, I do not have them yet. He quoted me that price based on the dimensions (hasn't been to my home yet). As of now, he suggested to dig a 4 foot hole with a post hole digger wait 3-5 days and see if it fills with water. After that he will have a better gauge on what my water is like below.

One tidbit. Make sure the depth measurement is taken from the existing soil level, not on top of the soil if the contractor builds up the soil around the pond.......

Have the contractor establish a water level. Slope the ground to the water level no greater than 3:1, even that is a little sketchy to mow....

If it's a groundwater pond, and the water level will fluctuate, all bets are off because it will be hard to get down to the water level if it drops. If so, plan on installing a floating dock to make a portion of the pond useable.

BTW the old "wait for the hole to fill" technique is flawed. If I were to dig a hole today in the most horrible spot to dig a pond, it would fill up in about 5 seconds if I could even get the hole dug for all of the water in the way. Hell, I could white-water raft down my hillside this morning!

What you want to do is dig a few holes in the area the pond is to be dug to examine the soils. Are they clay all the way down? Great! Did you hit sand plus a water table? Ok! Expect level fluctuations more so than simply a clay-lined runoff pond. Hit nothing but sand and stone? Gonna have to bring in something to line the pond if you want it to hold water.

Last summer, I would have had to kick a Koala bear out of the way to find water in a hole. I would need to yank a hose in Australia back through the hole.(If I didn't fry up when trying to dig through the core of the earth).

If I bring water in from a nearby river (is that legal), would that make my pond stay consistent in depth during the summer months? Or would that still be considered "ground water pond".

Thanks!

Definitely check the legalities of that for sure, but also reconsider based on the possible introduction of unwanted species. Yes, they'll go through a pump and you could screen it up all you want, but the tiniest little things could get in and it might not be what you want. Not saying don't do it, just suggesting you think about that option thoroughly first.