Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam Push or Haul Dirt?

How far is too far to push a load of dirt with a dozer? My operator kept telling me that 200 yards is too far to push dirt with a dozer. Trucking it seems ridiculous. Getting another machine on site with more minimum hour than I can possibly use doesn't seem like a good option either.

Hello ED
200 yards is to much of a push for one dozer even two. Try to figure out where to place dirt around pond so it blends in with natural landscape at the same time trying to create a natural watershed for the pond. If you decide to move the dirt 100 yards or more the most cost efficent way is with a Hoe,Dozer and three dump trucks. If planned out well you can move approx.a 1 acre pond in a day with prep work a few days before the trucks arrive.
Pushing dirt 200 yds.with a D6 will only yield you minimal material moved and cost more in the long run.
Good Luck.
Scott

You need a scraper to move dirt that far without using multiple pieces of equipment or operators. A good self propelled scraper can load, haul, empty, and return, all with one operator. The dozer can be compacting the fill in between hauls if you have an operator for that too. There are a lot of variables in your question, how many cu yds will need to be moved, what type of material, wet or dry, time frame, and budget all have an effect on the answer. Fill can be moved that far using a slot method to minimize the amout of loss but 200 yards is impractical due to the time spent backing up empty, i.e. no dirt is being moved then, raises time/cost per yard.

Thank you for your replies to both of my topics.

Scott, moving that much dirt in one day is impressive. Should I figure that 1ac, 1 yard deep is 4840 cu yards? What kind of prep work would this require, besides clearing the land? Should the doser loosen the dirt and put it in piles?

There are some trucks hauling dirt right in front of our building. I'll see how much they haul /load and how much $/day.

Hi Ed if you go to my homepage and look at page 1 of the pond you can see how much dirt I had hauled. The piles were over 10 ft high and it took 46 loads with a hauler, big dumpbed hauled with a semi. They were able to move it all in 2 days with a track hoe and 2 haulers being continuously loaded and moving the dirt about 3 miles away. This is a 1/3 acre or maybe just a bit larger that is 4 ft average depth and 10 ft at the deepest point. I was fortunate to have someone who wanted the dirt for fill and paid for it.

Bob

That is nice website, and quite a different time estimate. I know that the track hoe that I am planning to use has bigger bucket, and number of trucks and distance has a lot to do with that.

here is an interesting site - fillexchange. Even splitting the cost would be great.
http://network.acen.com/xchange/fill/

How does your weather station work? I see the cell phone - can you get real time data and download historical data?