Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Engineer Cost????

What would a ball park figure for an licensed engineer to design a .25 acre pond? The pond will be a cross between exacavation and embankment with an earthen spillway lined with rip rap, no plumbing.

Joe

Why do you need an engineer? Are you building it yourself?

Any competent builder should be able to get a soils sample done for you and calculate the height and width of a dam based on the depth of the water you'll be holding back. The spillway size is also a fairly strait forward calculation based on you water shed and worse case scenerios.

None of it is very complicated, and the smaller the pond, the easier it is to design.

Talk to at least three builders, with five being better. Never, ever hire the first one you talk to. Like everything, the ability to sell is usualy no indication of the ability to perform the job.

When you talk to multiple builders, you will notice that some will doe the exact same thing, while others don't have a clue.

Good luck,
Eddie

i'm with eddie, but if you have to have a P.E. (Prof. Engineer) stamp in order to get permits or something my guess would be approximately a two day (15-20 hr) effort at ~$100/hr.....

It is one of the Health Dept's requirments for a waiver on reducing the septic easement. Wow...that seems like a lot of man hours considering technology. The NRCS guy said he would come out and shoot elevations for my property for free. I wonder if this info would reduce the cost/time of the P.E.?

Joe

My experience with engineers is they require the survey before they will even look at anything. Just talking to them on the phone will cost you when they add up there bill.

In my case, for a seperate issue, I had to actualy explain the topographic survey to them. They had it upside down and couldn't figure out how I was going to run a sewer line to that location. An engineer and his assistant, at $160 an hour with me having to drive to there office just to show them how to read the survey in the format that they required.

Is the NRCS guy able to submit digital surveys or other formats?

What really sucked in my case is it was an obvious slope perfect for sewage lines, but before they would design the design for the pipes, they needed that in writing. Then they charged me $1,600 to tell me that the pipe could go just where I was gonna put it!!!

All that for the stamp saying it was engineered.

Good luck,
Eddie

Oh...that's painful to read. I don't mind paying for a well designed pond, but when somebody's incompetency starts costing me...nope.

I am pretty sure my NRCS guy could provide the numbers in that format. He mentioned to me that I could take his info and use it with various design programs.

After reading your pond story, I am surprised you didn't just stop, go get an engineering degree, and sign it off yourself.

Joe

When I purchased my property a couple of years ago it already had a 2 acre pond. I was thinking about expanding it to up to 4 acres. Not knowing what I was doing or how to approach things I contacted an engineer for ideas and an estimate. They came back with a plan overview (free) and an estimate to manage the project (plans, sureveying, permits, actual work) - $100,000!

I did some more research, found some contractors, got estimates and went to the NRCS myself. Decided to go the route of draining and renovating the existing pond. Estimated costs - $35,000.

My county Soil and Water Dept. offers consulting and design for a minimal fee if I remember correctly. It was only required if you were building a dam over 5' high.

I paid just over $5000 to have 6 acres surveyed and engineered. This included a cross-section of the dam, a topo, and the elevations and sizes of the 2 siphons. I did it because the county required it, but in the end, I'm glad I did.

My NRCS agent could talk with me about ponds all day, but other than that was no help.

Great post Poseidon. IIRC you have a masterpiece of a pond. Depending on the scale of the project, and who or what might be affected by a blowout on a poorly designed dam, having a reputable and experienced engineering firm (or engineering geologist ) could be worth every penny in the end. i did say "reputable" eddie