Anyone hired a crew to dig their pond?

[sissy]

I used a shovel and me .Do not ever want to do that again ,getting to old for that .First time I was 50 years old

 

[GBBUDD]

No hauling soil here, it made the slope back toward the pond from the bog. And hauled in at least 18 yards of river rock of one size or another. Another 20 yards of boulders I believe they call them one man boulders. And in the neighborhood of 100,000 pounds of boulders that were for decorating.

 

[Telion]

You may also want to look at your local Facebook for sale. Craigslist or site that might have people renting out this service or better the equipment. I ended up renting a mini excavator for 150.00 per day. Next level playtime once you get past the learning curve.

 

[Gemma]

We did. Hired a local hardscape company - they also installed our pacer patio. My husband had to direct them as they weren’t experienced pond diggers but they knew how to work the machines! I think we paid about $1000 plus disposal for the dirt. That was for three guys for two days with equipment. They also moved some of our bigger rocks for us and set some stairs.

Wow! That's not a lot for 2 days work!

Call Home Depot for a start and find out their rate for machine rental.
Home Depot here was about $450 for an 8 hour day compared to the local rental company that was $300 for 24 hours.
Maybe even rent for 2 days, dig it yourself, learn along the way and have some fun doing it!
The machine we rented came with a 12" bucket with teeth plus a 24" smoothing bucket.

It's not the digging that we are trying to get away from, it's the moving/disposal of the dirt. We'd have to rent for both the digging and for transporting plus pay for disposal of the dirt so we thought maybe for the same price we could get lucky and , find someone who already own the equipment and can do the whole thing.....but it's been days and we're still waiting for responses.
We contacted a local company yesterday, now we're waiting for the owner to call us back to set up an on site appointment

 

[Mmathis]

@Gemma What we ended up having to do to get rid our dirt was call someone from a local construction company. They always need dirt in their line of work, so there was no problem at all getting them to come pick it up. It amounted to a little over 2 truck loads. Personally, I can’t believe we had to pay THEM, but were so happy to get rid of the dirt that we didn’t care at that point.

 

[Gemma]

@Gemma What we ended up having to do to get rid our dirt was call someone from a local construction company. They always need dirt in their line of work, so there was no problem at all getting them to come pick it up. It amounted to a little over 2 truck loads. Personally, I can’t believe we had to pay THEM, but were so happy to get rid of the dirt that we didn’t care at that point.

I'd be happy to do the digging if I could find someone that would come take all the dirt!
We have to first dig to level the ground and then dig the pond, there's gonna be a lot of digging and a lot of dirt.

 

[Mmathis]

I'd be happy to do the digging if I could find someone that would come take all the dirt!
We have to first dig to level the ground and then dig the pond, there's gonna be a lot of digging and a lot of dirt.

Yes, and it’s amazing how much dirt you can acquire! I spent one summer with my pile of clay, bags of compost, my tiller and wheelbarrow, and a not-so-willing teenage son — amending and spreading TONS of it throughout our yard — and I still had to pay to have TONS of it hauled off!

 

[Gemma]

a not-so-willing teenage son —

My Teens are more than "willing" but they only have two speeds: Slow and Slower!

 

[herzausstahl]

did my 16x18x4' and stream by hand only machine was a rototiller to break up clay. estimated cost. food, x beer, nagging the wife = priceless.

Wet clay is 100 times easier to dig than dry but heavy too. Lol hand dug both of mine myself & hauled to yard waste site. I can fit 25 5gal buckets in the back of my truck & that's how I did it. Took maybe 5-10 min to unload each one. Sry I'm not closer @Gemma to help out.

 

[herzausstahl]

My Teens are more than "willing" but they only have two speeds: Slow and Slower!View attachment 112399

Lol they sound like my nephews

 

[Gemma]

Sry I'm not closer @Gemma to help out.

Thanks!

 

[herzausstahl]

Thanks!

Once you get a system hand digging isn't bad just takes time. Clay can be a curse to dig but a blessing for wall stability!

 

[sissy]

shale is the worst ,I thought my clay layer was bad until I hit the shale

 

[Gemma]

Once you get a system hand digging isn't bad just takes time. Clay can be a curse to dig but a blessing for wall stability!

That's good to know, cause clay (and rocks) is what I'm facing!

shale is the worst ,I thought my clay layer was bad until I hit the shale

I don't even know what that is!

 

[herzausstahl]

Here you go @Gemma i looked back at my build in pond photography forum. Here's my upper pond when I first dug it, its 6' deep. That's sand at the bottom & spread on the sides to help with cracking from the clay walls so it wouldn't be as sharp on underlay/liner. 45 mil epdm went in over a think underlay (geotextile or something, I forget, ordered the underlay on eBay & liner from Menards). But it sat like this for at least a week or longer with no issues.