Cost of doing a pond

[Lisak1]

Dump fees? That's sorta funny because the first thing excavating crews do is scrape off and keep the topsoil for resale later.

That is generally true in a new subdivision, but it certainly isn't true when you have a big hole dug in your small backyard. Because of the layout of our yard, the bog and waterfall were already elevated, so we needed exactly zero cubic yards of the dirt we pulled out of that hole. And I'll second what @morewater - our backyard is a treasure trove of all kinds of construction trash. We had to reconfigure our waterfall to avoid a pile of landscape timber scraps that they buried behind the wall they constructed. Digging them out would have meant relocating power lines - you want to talk about expensive. So we just shook our heads and went to plan B.

Which brings up another cost point - as with any construction budget, add a good percentage for overruns. You just never know what you're going to dig up!

 

[morewater]

I once dug up an old bicycle at the 3 foot mark. I found a bathtub once at the 2 foot mark.

It's especially fun to discover that the the builder decided to dump all of the unused, uncured concrete into a hole and just bury it. The last house build on the downhill slope generally gets all of the scraped crap in their backyard.

It's always a wonderful surprise when you run into a 3 or 4 ton boulder halfway through the dig.

 

[myswtsins]

I haven't brought myself around to adding it all up and it's been done for 1.5 years lol. But I'll agree with everyone else.

• Find a good contracted who actually is a pond installer not a landscaper who is trying to add this to their portfolio (which by the way you should ask if their portfolios is of THEIR actually work cause manufacturers will provide pictures for new installers).
• Do what work you can yourself to cut costs, I see you've already started digging the hole so that's good.
• Allow for overages in your budget. My pond was DIY with no machinery and due to unforeseen reasons it cost more than expected, probably why I haven't brought myself to add it up.
• Don't take the contractors word on anything, look it up yourself. Example... they want you to need things like a total draining and powerwashing every spring and fall by them which kills your bacteria and then you need to buy their products to make u for it.

For a fairly large pond with dual waterfalls 15k is very possible but there are tons of variables!

I will see if I can come up with an estimate of what my pond cost, materials only of course cause all the labor was free. Labor will double the price at a BARE minimum, triple or even more is very possible. About 30 tons of stone and gravelIt holds about 5,000 gallons. Main pond is about 16x11x3, 30ft stream, negative edge skimmer with a 9x7x4 water basin and a 10x3 bog.
Overview shot shortly after finishing.