My pond

[Robert_in_NY]

I was going thru some old photos and I finally found the before and after pictures of when we dug our pond. The before picture shows how bad the jungle was and it was all swamp. We couldn't even walk thru there without sinking.

 

[ByuBill]

Lightened your photos a little and reposted them. I hope that you don't mind. I wish that I had room for a pond here. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I don't mind at all, it is funny, we have 73 acres and every time we think about planting something somewhere we realize it would be in the way. We also just bought 45 acres across the road but it is all woods so we have 118 acres with no room to put anything either. The pond was easy because it was swamp and we couldn't do anything with it anyways. Take care.

 

[manganos]

Looks great! What machinery did you use to make the pond. My pond needs some work

 

[Robert_in_NY]

A Komatsu PC 150 did all of the digging which included a huge channel and a monstrous ditch on another part of the property. We had a JD 450G to clear off a lot of land and to knock down the piles as the Komatsu was digging. And for anyone interested, a JD 450G with 10' blade is not big enough to keep up with a Komatsu. The guy digging the pond was a friend of ours and he dropped off the dozer for us to use and picked it up 2 months later. He then got divorced and lost most of his equipment but still has an old Komatsu for side jobs.

 

[rf33]

Isn't it amazing how much work an excavator can do in the hands of a skilled operator? When we had our lake enlarged a bit, I was truly amazed at how fast that thing could move dirt. One operator (albeit a very good one) on a Cat 320 kept two dump trucks busy and at times was waiting on the trucks. Really is fun to watch, but makes me want to change jobs.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

They are fast. It would be fun to run one for a living because you are always in a different place doing something different. My problem is if I was to run one you would probally hear about it as I would probally end up in one of the internet photo's showing an excavator either sunk or on its side as I have that type of luck. They are fun to watch though.

 

[manganos]

I'm looking to get my pond elarged. Could you tell me approx. how much an hour I should look to spend? I can't see it being more then a days work. The pond I want elarged is on the small side.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Sorry, I can not help you there. Our pond was dug for free as it was a good friend of ours. Only thing we paid for was fuel. We help him out when he needs help so it all offsets.

 

[rf33]

The amount will depend a great deal on the area, and on the size of the equipment. I would think that a medium (Cat 320 size) excavator and operator should probably go for around $60 per hour, or around $400 per day. This is based on what I have seen around here. This price might shock at first, but you really have to see it to apreciate the amount of work that a skilled operator can do with one of these machines in a day. Also gotta consider that the maintenance on these things, as well as a truck a trailer big enough to haul one does not come cheap. I think that most of the guys around here also have a minumum charge to help to cover the time it takes to transport one of these beasts around.

 

[dhcmca]

We recently had our pond enlarged. I was responsible to pump it dry, and then a local contractor was willing to do it during some "slow time". It took him about seven hours to dig a pond 60 X 80 feet and 10 feet deep. (It used to be about three feet deep and full of cattails) He used an excavator, a bulldozer, and a dump truck, and charged me only $900. (Thats in Canadian dollars, so I think that translates to about $25 US funds /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif). The only other condition that the contractor insisted on, was that I had to have a place on my property to dump the fill. We are very happy with the new pond.

Dave

 

[manganos]

Yeah my pond behind the home is full of cattails. It varies in depth from 1" to about 4". I'd like to have it from 4" at the low mark to 10" at the deepest. Thanks for the help. I attatched a picture of my pond (one side of it) to show you what I'm talking about.

 

[manganos]

Sorry here is the pic.