Build A Pond?

[ctpres]

Found out the following about homeowners insurance discount and ponds in Texas. Won't help my project as we are 10 miles from fire station, but this may help others.
Texas department of insurance has authorized up to 10% discount with acceptable dry hydrant IF it is less than 1,000 feet from dwelling AND dweling in less than 5 miles from nearest fire station.
Also Texas Fosest Service helps fund dry hydrants through its Rural Community Fire Protection cost-share program. The program, open to fire departments in communities of less than 10,000 people, pays a percentage (about half) of the cost of specific equipment. I understand some counties actually get involved with design and installation. The "specific" equipment related to a dryhydrant could save you a couple hundred dollars.

 

[ctpres]

Dock done. Bring on the rain. Well almost done, I still need to finish some kind of approach and step up to dock. But that won't happen till I see for sure where water level will be when full, my transit slills are marginal.

 

[zene55]

It's not quite that simple. The 10 acres I had in Navarro County, TX, did not have a single rock that wasn't hauled in. The soil was "Wilson Clay Loam" according to the soil scientist, and that went down over 4 feet; definitely clay that would make a mudball. However, a pond had been dug and it went down to about 15 feet and after 4 to 6 feet, the soil changed to a much lighter color and the water soaked right in, so it wouldn't hold water at all.

Bird I have realtives from Navarro County. My folks all came from Dawson. Small world.

 

[beppington]

Moving right along. If they upload right. First pic is temp. dock using old walk bridge from ditch replaced by pond. Poles are perm. Hardpan was only a few inches deep at pole locations so I went down five feet and hit nothing but sand. Second pic is non engineer solution to slow poles sinking in sand. Simply mounted a cross piece on top of hardpan, hopefully the increased surface area will slow pole sinking.

The good news is, if your stabilizer doesn't work, eventually you'll have a narrow boat ramp (a canoe ramp?)

I like that pond! Hopefully my local EPA will let me do something similar, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[ITHINKICAN]

duplicate - sorry!

 

[ITHINKICAN]

Dock done. Bring on the rain. Well almost done, I still need to finish some kind of approach and step up to dock. But that won't happen till I see for sure where water level will be when full, my transit slills are marginal.

The good news is, if your stabilizer doesn't work, eventually you'll have a narrow boat ramp (a canoe ramp?)

I like that pond!

Nice dock!! I bet if I show this to my kids - first thing they'll ask - "Daddy, Can you build us a ramp like that so we can jump it with our dirt bikes". I like the pond too. We hope to start digging our 1st pond after the Holidays. :thumbsup:

 

[ctpres]

Want to Dig a Pond?
Lessons learned - so far:

If you have topsoil carefully remove and save. In our case three soil layers: topsoil, hardpan and sand. Hardpan and sand pretty much worthless if spread for lawn or garden. I put about half of dig around house to smooth and level yard. Ryegrass not doing well at all in areas covered last, which was mostly sand. Whichever soil you remove holds water best, save some to seal bottom if needed.

Do NOT do it without a toothbar. PERIOD

Whatever time you plan on alloting for project, double or triple it.

Get small pump to remove water rather than wait for things to dry up enough to work. I used small HF electric, moves amazing amount of water.

Plan dirt use or storage before starting. It really does grow, friends and neighbors who want dirt will NOT be able to work on your schedule or will change mind.

If space permits, be artistic with shape. Since your digging it you can pretty much put shoreline where you want.

Consider sight line, ie. Where will you be most of the time when looking at your pond? In our case from house and back deck. I now see I should have made it wider along the line of sight from house. Would have been more work but the end results would have been nicer to look at.

Try different methods of digging. I found getting hole big enough for tractor and then working on the wall worked best.

You probably won't get bucket full digging so make piles in hole at bottom of you entry ramp. Then you can litterly dive into pile going downhill and get a really full load. It dosn't make sense to travel any distance with anything less than a FULL bucket.

Others will tell you don't try. Or pay someone. It can be done and it is enjoyable if you are not fighting a schedule. Ours ended up a little over 1/4 acre and was a 100% dig project. Didn't keep track of expenses but I'm sure it was less than $500 for fuel, cost of one toothbar, tractor maintenance for under 200 hours and a hundred or so for grass seed and fertilizer, dock <$200 and pump <50. I have more projects planned for pond but everthing else is optional.

I am not a pond expert yet, but I sure have learned a lot. If I had a do-over would I do it again? YES.



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[radioman]

awesome post. What you posted makes sense. time has to be on your side to make digging your own pond worth it. enjoy!! :thumbsup:

 

[Gary Fowler]

Folks that recommend that you hire someone to dig a pond likely never got an estimate to do one. My Brother in law had one done with dozer and backhoe to meet the Arkansas Ag extension requirements of minimum 6 feet deep below grade not to include the levee height and I think the dimensions were 160 x160 feet. I cost over $5000 and took about a week for the dirt contractor to build, but it passed inspection and the county ag ext. footed about half the cost. I build one about half that size which was all I wanted in 2 days with my tractor and a couple tanks of fuel. By the way, with a large tractor, you dont need a tooth bar. I dug this one with a smooth blade and had no problem with it biting in. My 45 Hp Yanmar wouldnt even dig into loose soil without a tooth bar but my LS P 7010 had no problem till I hit rock at about 5 feet deep. That was as far as I planned to go anyway but I did manage to scrabble a little deeper and remove some loose shale by using the scarifer teeth on the box blade. When I started to hit large rocks like the one in the photo that I left out in the pond, I decided that it was plenty deep. I was just going to make a koi pond to start with anyway. I still need to put in the overflow when I get home sometime after Christmas. But so far we havent had much rain to do more than just settle the dirt in on the levee.
I really enjoyed making this one and enjoyed it a lot more than paying a couple thousand for someone else. I have about $100 in fuel cost and 2 days of my time. So if I calculate it like one of the other post here, I have 20 hours @ $90 per hour + fuel = $1900. It was the most enjoyable 1900 I have spent in a while

 

[Gary Fowler]

By the way, all the dirt from the pond went into making the levee which is required on 3 sides so I didnt have to worry about dirt disposal or moving it very far for this one. My B-I-L and I spent a week of so digging out our 3 acre pond that had dried up significantly and we have several large piles of sandy clay to move which will take a while but we had need of it to fill in some low spots, so it wont go to waste. I used my Yanmar 4220 for that and it would fall thru the dried up crust a lot of time. I was scared to put my LS in it as it weighs more than twice as much as our other 2 tractors. I got the Yanny stuck once and BIL could barely pull it out with his NH 2030 with R4 tire and I sure didnt want to take a chance on sticking that 70HP.