WP, I had pond built about four years ago and looked at hiring an excavation company, buying equipment, or renting equipment and doing the work myself.I received bids from four excavation companies. Number 1 was a small independent contractor that was very knowledgeable about building ponds and lakes ( he had worked for the State DNR building ponds) but was going to have to rent some larger equipment and hire some help to do the work I needed.He did good work but I had talked to one guy who waiting over a year to have his pond dug and finally found another contractor. Contractor number 2 was a local well known company with a few employees and good references but he was so busy working in some new housing additions that he really did not seem interested in moving his equipment to build my pond. He said that my 3 acre pond would be done start to finish in 6 days.His bid was a little higher than the other three and I got the feeling if my job went past the six day mark the cost would be higher.He also mentioned that he would probably not be there to oversee the work.Contractor number 3 was a father-son outfit which was my cheapest bid by about 6k. They argued most of the time while they were here giving an estimate. The father was trying to talk me into reducing the size of the pond. He said it had been a few months since their largest dozer had been started and said he would leave the large dozer at my pondsite until the his next large job to cut down on hauling costs.In addition to these red flags, the father took a phone call from another potential customer and talked for 15 minutes during my estimate.Needless to say, I was ready for them to leave.Contractor number 4 was another larger company that specialized in building landfill cells and watershed projects. The owner asked me if I wanted "a bid" or "an estimate". I asked what was the difference. He said that an estimate could always cost more ,but a bid would be higher but would not go a dime over!
I went with contractor number 4.He owned all his own equipment and had enough equipment that he was able use my job as fill-in work (his shop is only 5 miles from here). Which worked out good for both of us.They usually left one or two pieces of equipment here and worked on the pond when the weather and their schedule allowed.
The first day when they delivered an 84000lb excavator with 5ft bucket and filled it with 115 gallon diesel fuel @ $4 a gallon I was glad I had not tried to build the pond myself.
My pond from start to final grade took about 13 months time. My ground was wetter than they ever imaged. The first operator came real close to burying the large excavator but luckily they always had other equipment there to help get equipment unstuck. I cant imagine what it would cost to have an outside company come in to remove a piece of rental equipment out of the quagmire.The company at times had a D6 dozer, a brand new D6LGP dozer, a 42000 lb excavator, a 84000 lb excavator,a skid steer,a 350hp tractor with a dirt pan,and a 130hp tractor on site.They had a few breakdowns.First was a $3500 drive motor on the small excavator, second was a busted hydraulic hose in an immovable dozer that was frozen to the ground in 15 deg temps which took 3 frigid days to fix, and lastly they had they older d6 dozer which was having electrical issues and required a CAT service tech.
Sorry my post is so long but I just wanted to emphasize that pond building can pose a lot of unexpected obstacles and expense especially with wet ground and using equipment with more than a few operating hours on the meter.
When all is said and done I love my pond and it is one of the best investments I have made. But I am not sure that my contractor made much money building my pond after all the lost man hours working on equipment and paying for repairs.I had some fence rows removed over and above the pond build and his charge rate for the excavator and dozer was 115 per hour each. My total pond build was a around 22k but after you subtract parts,fuel,hauling permits,and labor there probably was not much $$$ left.
