As owner of a trackhoe (large excavator), someone who had planned to purchase some more heavy equipment so he could do it all himself, and as someone who wound up paying someone else to do most of the work on his pond...

I'd recommend to most that they hire it done from the beginning.

One of the main reasons for the high amounts charged by the companies for the heavy equipment use is directly related to their high costs in purchase, operations, and maintenance. The operations and maintenance portion is a lot bigger than most would expect. Perhaps not surprisingly, bouncing over ground carrying heavy loads / pushing dirt / pulling heavy loads leads to lots of repairs and the big engines use lots of fuel. And for some gosh darn reason I can't figure out except that they can by with it, the parts and labor for that equipment is about three times what seems reasonable. I know that darn paint and label can't be that expensive!

Most contractors can bring more and better equipment to work on your lake than regular pond owners can afford so they can do it faster (less likely of dam being washed out when half done), they bring more experience and usually expertise, and they can do it while you're working to help pay for it so you don't have to take off work.

When I was looking at buying all the equipment, I thought I would buy it for a good price, do my lake, maybe do some work for others to help generate revenue, and then sell it at a just slightly lower price if I didn't get in the business. Cheap or free lake. Great in theory, but it didn't exactly work out like that in my case and I doubt if it does in most.

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