Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Tips when looking at property for pond potential?

This weekend I am going to look at a property and was wondering if there are any things I should be looking for as far as future pond building potential for the property? Before I actually purchase a property I would probably have an expert out, but are there things I should be sort of looking for...as far as "would this property work to build a 5-7 acre lake on?".

Property Listing:

Aerial #1 of 20 heavily wooded acres

Aerial #2 of 20 heavily wooded acres for sale

Current owner comment about pond potential:
"We have about a 1/2AC pond behind our home. It is really low now, but it has been a great pond. This land is kind of sandy on the top layer, but clay below. It holds water extremely well. We have catfish and if it hadn't been such a good pond (10' deep at the middle), we would have lost all the fish in this drought. There is a little creek bed that runs thru the 20AC. It only has water in it during the rainy season, but it would be a great spot to build a pond."

Perfect Pond from the Pond Boss office.

Big trees are very hard to find.

Find out about the watershed. It has to be large enough and be subject to you capturing it for your pond.

Check with the county/city to find out about future plans as to roads etc.

Check on noise from nearby highways.

Check on property restrictions - zoning etc.

Be sure there is a clay base.

These are just a few things to check.

Thanks for the tips ewest!

Will do on purchasing "Perfect Pond" from Bob.

Take a good look at the neighbors. A real, real, good look.

Thanks Dave. Yeah after seeing the property one of the neighbors is a major concern. One of the neighbors has tons of debris, a broken down falling apart mobile home, an old junker car, old rusting scrap metal piles and junk right out by the road. I was told the owner is a 20-something kid that inherited it from his alcoholic uncle and no one has seen him around in a year or two since he got out of prison. I am going to look else-where for property.

For starters if you are considering building a pond or lake in the 5 to 7 acre range you will need to find property that has the right natural topography. You want to find land you can store that much water or most of it above ground by damming across two hill tops. Digging a 5 to 7 acre hole is very expensive.

Thanks Rocky.....good points. Makes sense...the less hole to dig the less expense. I was told I should figure....just as a very rough ballpark because every parcel of land is different...about $10K for each acre of water. So a 5 acre lake/pond would roughly be about $50K, a 10 acre lake might be around $100K. Do you concur with that basic ballpark estimate as far having a pond/small lake built by a professional?

During our search, I found it beneficial to contact a trustee from one of the bordering townships and quiz them about the area I am interested in. You can usually google around and find the names listed, often with contact phone numbers. Asking from "outside the box" will usually yield a more honest response. More than once I got my eyes opened before wasting too much time falling in love.

It's been a few years since our property search, and the quick movement of technology may have left my methods in the dust, but this was one of my best search tactics.

Your biggest consideration might be, as Rocky said, the topography. The runoff area has to be considered and it must all be on your land. If it comes off adjoining land, the neighbor might change things that reduces the amount of runoff available to you. That has happened to me.

If you can find this kid, and see if he wants to sell too. Sounds like cheap property, but ya if you would be stuck with that as a neighbor and not like it, its very smart to look else where.

I read out your interesting and informative post....much informative.Nice tips!i'm going to buy a house.this will be helpful for me.

You may want to look into who owns the mineral rights on the property, too. When we were looking for land, the mineral rights were a large issue as we did not want to risk an oil company coming in and tearing up the property after we built our permanent home. (There are some real horror stories out there). We found that only 2 of the 40 or 50 properties that were listed at that time actually retained 100% of the rights. Fortunately for us, 1 of those 2 tracts met our requirements (we had generated a list prioritizing our needs) and we wound up purchasing that acreage.