I need a surveyor. And a pond digger for my new backyard.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cowadle

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Apr 11, 2009
Messages
3,444
Reaction score
4,591
Location
not available
looks like from your photo you are going to dig a pit pond,so there won't be a dam. get a backhoe and dig a test hole about as deep as you can to see what the strata underneath looks like and to check for springs. then you can start to estimate if you can even make a pond work in that area. as far as fill goes for your foundation use a motor scraper to haul the fill in and spread it no deeper than 8 inches per layer then blade it off and with the full scraper drive over the fill track to track to compact. tear the surface up a little and start over and repeat until desired fill is in place. never fill on top of undisturbed vegetative top soil. remove it first with the scraper and stockpile it for use later. if you have ground water that comes up in the pit let it settle until it goes static and you can measure the overburden above the water and then estimate how much wet bank will need removed for your pond.
 

PanhandleGlocker

Sharpshooter
Special Hen Banned
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Messages
7,118
Reaction score
12,880
Location
Guymon, OK
Read through all the comments and I don’t think I saw a single thing about anyone mentioning a One Call.

6F609FB7-CB2B-4E1C-A76A-D032BE00EE77.jpeg
 

enuf

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Apr 26, 2014
Messages
775
Reaction score
1,255
Location
Collinsville
My old boss used bentonite to seal the bottom of a pond.....
Be careful, there can be some environmental constraints on how you use bentonite; not a big risk until it is plastered on the net - if you know what I mean. Also, you need to find out where, how deep, the bedrock is where you are located, don't want to bust that.
 

Parks 788

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Oct 13, 2010
Messages
3,091
Reaction score
2,888
Location
Bristow, OK
Me thinks you will probably need some deep pockets to do a pond 12'-15' deep with an acre footprint. You'd be looking at 1600-2000 cubic yards of dirt to move. If you plan on diggin that much dirt yourself your going to want a D6R size or bigger dozer, 55K-80K excavator and probably 10 yard dump if you want to move the excavated dirt to a pad location. The biggest bucket you can put on an 80K excavator is about 60"-66" bucket that only holds 2-3 cubic yards of dirt heaped. If the dozer is doing all the pushing then you could get away with a smaller excavator but then your bucket size and capacity goes down accordingly. That's a lot of dirt to move for one or two guys if you want it done in a timely manner due to the rental of these size machines. On a monthly rental basis, which is the most economical? you be looking at approx $25K/month for the machines alone not including transportation and diesel costs.

Most companies won't this type of gear to a landowner that is not a contractor paying with credit card. Too much liability with damage and misuse to depend on a cash customer to be able to pay for damages, etc.

You be better off finding a dirt broker in OKC or Tulsa to find you quality fill and trucks to bring in the dirt you need for a pad. Just my .02 pesos worth.
 

dennishoddy

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
84,556
Reaction score
61,838
Location
Ponca City Ok
One word of advice on using government aid, check the rules. There could be verbiage that if you use government subsidies that you have to let it open to public use. Not sure about Oklahoma and certain departments here, just check it.
NO. Using government assistance doesn't require access to the general public. We have had this discussion many times before.
 

cowadle

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Apr 11, 2009
Messages
3,444
Reaction score
4,591
Location
not available
if the pond has a spring in it the dirt you remove will be saturated. best practice is to pile it as high as possible and let gravity weather time dry it out and then move the spoil to it's final destination. unless of course you have a pile of money to trade for it's immediate removal and processing. get a dragline?
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom