Thanks for the pictures... yeah I think he's very expensive. He's at $2K a day... minus lets say $500 in fuel puts him at 1500 a day. After doing the math he's at around $185 an hour in his pocket for a dozer.
I agree with you, with the right equipment, it shouldn't take anymore than 2 days max. A day to dig the hole and a day to spread the dirt, compact the clay, etc. I know building a pond is more than digging a hole, but when they dug my house (roughly 100' x 30') they had it done in about a half day (5-6 hours). Their will be less dirt excavated from the pond than from my house because I'm only going 8' in the very center, my house is 8' all around. He said he couldn't dig that hole in 2 days. He must have the wrong equipment... or since I'm fairly young looking trying to pull my leg. I mean he did tell me he wanted to take down all my trees to pile the dirt right their and I told him I don't want those down... I have 2 acres of flat land you can spread it on. Then he kept insisting on it'll only take him a day to take those trees down (Yeah @ 2K a day) simply put he's trying to make the job look harder and add so much more work on top of that to get every penny.
I've done my research and I should have told him that. From reading & a good contractor can normally dig 1/4 an acre per day. Mine is around 1/8th an acre... actually closer to 1/10th an acre. To be honest, that hole should be dug in a matter of 6-8 hours. Then another 8 hours to grade the dirt, compact the clay and load his equipment up.
