Digging A Pond

[JurgenG]

We want to dig a pond 50m x 20m x 6m. On average, using a backhoe, how long does it take (hours) to dig such a pond ? Is it better to negotiate an hourly rate or a price for the job ?

We are going to dump the soil in our land around 200 m from the pond. The back hoe operator said he will use a truck (and of course will charge us for it) as it's fastest and more economical (?) than to have the backhoe going back and forth from the digging place to the dumping place. Any comment about that ?

Thanks in advance

Jurgen

[kandahar]

It is certainly faster to use the dump truck. I can't imagine dumping the dirt 200 meters from the pond without the truck. That would take a LONG time.

I don't know where you are but you can probably sell the dirt. If you need it, then you need it. But if you don't NEED it, someone will probably provide the trucks to haul it off with. There is so much building going on in my area that fill-dirt is very popular. Better to have a line of trucks hauling the dirt out than waiting for one truck to keep making the rounds to the dump site on your property. So, check around with the dirt haulers and see if they will buy it. They may well provide the machine and the operator to dig the pond too, in exchange for the dirt. Worth asking about. The top-soil has a separate market. Folks are looking for that as well so, in your talks, make sure that you mention both, fill-dirt and top-soil.

Edited April 18, 2010 by kandahar

[JurgenG]

I know who could have the work done for free if the backhoe owner could keep the dirt but we need it for our own use.

What I actually need is a guesstimate of the number of hours to dig a 50 x 20 x 6 m pond, as a base for negotiation, to decide if we're going to pay by hour of by job. Anybody has any idea ?

[kandahar]

I know who could have the work done for free if the backhoe owner could keep the dirt but we need it for our own use.

What I actually need is a guesstimate of the number of hours to dig a 50 x 20 x 6 m pond, as a base for negotiation, to decide if we're going to pay by hour of by job. Anybody has any idea ?

That I don't know. But good luck with the project.

[gotlost]

Backhoes charge about 1500 baht per hour. A 10 hour day is 15,000 baht throw in a truck for moving dirt and I'm guessing 5 days plus truck (5m truck) = 100,000 baht. Happy Digging.

[Foreverford]

Backhoes charge about 1500 baht per hour. A 10 hour day is 15,000 baht throw in a truck for moving dirt and I'm guessing 5 days plus truck (5m truck) = 100,000 baht. Happy Digging.

First why 6 meters? Second what is the dirt for and do you need it all. You can go down three meters up two meters and have what you want if you can live with 5 meters. I built a pond about 15 x 35 x 5 for about 15,000. No trucks and I may have slowed the operator slightly because only 65% of the perimeter needed to be raised two meters due to previous work I had finished so I handled all the rest of his spoils (I had already scraped off all the top soil and he started on clay) building roads and levees around the farm with a very big box scraper I built for a Ford 6610.

The Excavator was new and had a computer in it, I had chosen them to build by the job not the hour and with the computer and their hourly rate it would have been almost exactly the same total. Rate was 1500 an hour so if newer they will have a computer on board and you will pay for what you get.

I needed dirt to re-build a road and do some levelling on another farm so I got a smaller excavator and 6 10 wheelers and it was 160 per truck and if you averaged the hauls you could say it was 200 meters travelling on the average. You can do the math but I am missing the most important number but someone will help you with it in a later post and that is the number of meters per 10 wheeler. I would just guess maybe 7 as 10 wheelers come in all sizes and shapes. I didn't get any short loads and that is always a concern when buying work this way.

If in fact you are going to try to dig six meters below ground level you are going to probbly get into some wet and heavy and sticky earth. Choke Dee Forever Fords

[JurgenG]

Thanks for the answer Foreverford.

Why 6 meters ? I don't know, it's just a figure. We already have a shallow pond, about 1.5 m deep with only 50 cm of water left at the bottom at the end of the dry season . We want to grow vegetable and fruits so we need to have a good reservoir. The soil will be used to level the ground around the pond.

It seems the rates we have are not that bad, 500 B / hour for the tractor, 1,300 for the backhoe and 80 B / round for the truck. To save some cost, maybe we can use more the tractor and less the backhoe. I don't speak Thai, translation is always difficult, that's why I try to have as much as possible figured out before starting the negotiation.

[gotlost]

Thanks for the answer Foreverford.

Why 6 meters ? I don't know, it's just a figure. We already have a shallow pond, about 1.5 m deep with only 50 cm of water left at the bottom at the end of the dry season . We want to grow vegetable and fruits so we need to have a good reservoir. The soil will be used to level the ground around the pond.

It seems the rates we have are not that bad, 500 B / hour for the tractor, 1,300 for the backhoe and 80 B / round for the truck. To save some cost, maybe we can use more the tractor and less the backhoe. I don't speak Thai, translation is always difficult, that's why I try to have as much as possible figured out before starting the negotiation.

The prices that you quoted are reasonable. Your not going to save by using the tractor. Digging the pond is backhoe work and that size will take time. Don't be surprised to if the cost is 200k. This is going to depend on the ability of the operator.

[ozzydom]

I take it that the backhoe you are referring to is actually a tracked excavator or Macro as they are referred to here in Los.

50x20x6 = 6000 cubic metres

You will need about 4 x 10 m trucks if all the fill is to be moved away, otherwise your excavator is going to have a lot of down time waiting for a truck to dump into. You should also take into account that unless you have already dug a 6 metre test hole, you dont know what you are going to strike, most likely heavy clay past 2 metres.

Clay ,wet or dry is extremely hard to excavate.

The last pond we had excavated this way ,was 40 x 40 x 4m , quote was 150k 5 years ago. The job ended up taking 16 days and the contractor sneaked off one night with his gear as he figured it would cost him far more than the 30k left owing to him to finish the job as per his quote.

My advise is to get a quote per cubic metre to excavate and remove the fill ,dont forget to stipulate at least 4:1 bank angles (to help prevent erosion), site clean-up and levelling before final payment.

My guesstimate would be close to 250k.

Remember ,6000cub met @ (if its a 10 wheel truck ) at 7 cub met per load ,is almost 70k for the truck alone.

[JurgenG]

I take it that the backhoe you are referring to is actually a tracked excavator or Macro as they are referred to here in Los. Right !

50x20x6 = 6000 cubic metres

You will need about 4 x 10 m trucks if all the fill is to be moved away, otherwise your excavator is going to have a lot of down time waiting for a truck to dump into. You should also take into account that unless you have already dug a 6 metre test hole, you dont know what you are going to strike, most likely heavy clay past 2 metres.

Clay ,wet or dry is extremely hard to excavate.

You're right, it would make sense to dig a test hole.

Anyway, I'll be around when they dig the pond and if we hit a too hard layer, we may decide to stop there.

The last pond we had excavated this way ,was 40 x 40 x 4m , quote was 150k 5 years ago. The job ended up taking 16 days and the contractor sneaked off one night with his gear as he figured it would cost him far more than the 30k left owing to him to finish the job as per his quote.

The same happened to us 3 month ago for an other job, the contractor said he won't come back the next day because he already promised someone else to do an other job but would be back soon. We're still waiting for him .

My advise is to get a quote per cubic metre to excavate and remove the fill ,dont forget to stipulate at least 4:1 bank angles (to help prevent erosion), site clean-up and levelling before final payment.

My guesstimate would be close to 250k.

Remember ,6000cub met @ (if its a 10 wheel truck ) at 7 cub met per load ,is almost 70k for the truck alone.

Thanks for those good advises. We will probably do like this.... and go for a 4m deep pond that should be enough for our needs and more within our budget.

[Foreverford]

I take it that the backhoe you are referring to is actually a tracked excavator or Macro as they are referred to here in Los. Right !

50x20x6 = 6000 cubic metres

You will need about 4 x 10 m trucks if all the fill is to be moved away, otherwise your excavator is going to have a lot of down time waiting for a truck to dump into. You should also take into account that unless you have already dug a 6 metre test hole, you dont know what you are going to strike, most likely heavy clay past 2 metres.

Clay ,wet or dry is extremely hard to excavate.

You're right, it would make sense to dig a test hole.

Anyway, I'll be around when they dig the pond and if we hit a too hard layer, we may decide to stop there.

The last pond we had excavated this way ,was 40 x 40 x 4m , quote was 150k 5 years ago. The job ended up taking 16 days and the contractor sneaked off one night with his gear as he figured it would cost him far more than the 30k left owing to him to finish the job as per his quote.

The same happened to us 3 month ago for an other job, the contractor said he won't come back the next day because he already promised someone else to do an other job but would be back soon. We're still waiting for him .

My advise is to get a quote per cubic metre to excavate and remove the fill ,dont forget to stipulate at least 4:1 bank angles (to help prevent erosion), site clean-up and levelling before final payment.

My guesstimate would be close to 250k.

Remember ,6000cub met @ (if its a 10 wheel truck ) at 7 cub met per load ,is almost 70k for the truck alone.

Thanks for those good advises. We will probably do like this.... and go for a 4m deep pond that should be enough for our needs and more within our budget.

So Ozzzydom got you dialed in with all the facts. You obviously know that you can get a lake for free in Issan and if 1/4 million baht is a bit out of your budget to get a big dry hole may i sugest my method where you may get something that you can have that will accomplish all you have suggested you need.

Here goes and I'm going to try to make this brief (yeah right says everyione who has read any of my other posts) but it does work cause i did it. Get a 6610 Ford tractor with a one cubic meter box on the back and Cat 14 motor grader ripper teeth on the front blade. Spend about 3000 baht on fuel and rip and excavate all your top soil to where you want to level your growing areas. If you need some clay for roads, levees or building sites that can be purchased seperately from your excavator ("backhoe" in thai) operator.

My lake was a free form kidney shaped kind of thing but I now recall I estimated it at 30x15x5 (3 meters down and two meters up) I have large well to keep the pond topped up and the top of the pond leevee is the highest point for miles to keep my organic pond from being contaminated during any 100 - 500 year floods (important to have thetop of your pond where you won't loose what you have inside if that becomes and issue. We have other ponds that have low levee on other farms and they all go under water in the 100 year floods (we had a couple recently)).

Soooo we'll call your pond now 30x30x5 (go 4 down 1 up or 3 meters down and two up). I'm pretty sure it was 15,000 by bid so we could double that and it could cost you about 30,000 to just get the dirt out of the ground and dumped in big blobs (you will have plenty of blobs of goo if you are going to be down 5-6 meters as Oz said) amongst some better heavy clay soil.

Still your cost was 33,000 baht and you have a war zone. So back to the 3,000 baht for fuel to get your Super Ford to spend a few days moving some topsoil and then the backhoe operator brings in a half a dozen to a dozen 10 wheelers (depending on the distance to his off-haul dump site) and digs the entire thing for free and sells the dirt to the whoever at about 150-200 baht a load. Done deal a big beautiful pond for 3 grand if yoiu have an extra Ford 6610 laying around.

Now to do it right you should negotiate with your operator that when he gets down to about a meter or so deep he will use the spoils to build you your 1-2 meter high levee around the pond (hel_l never be able to really compact the levee to make a proper dam but one good year of rain and it will meld into a homogeneous entity and be water-tight I'm sure. So negotiate for him to put a levee around it and he can still sell a bunch of truckloads too.

If it works out okay and you are pleased, do the same thing again next year and in the end you will have in essence the near equivalence of the pond that you originally spec'd in your first post. If there ain't no water you haven't spent much and you only have one hole in the ground. AND if in fact you really do need a bunch of goo for fill somewhere better to get it from your second dig when you know for sure all the goo that you are getting out of the ground is going for another pond just a fine as the one you are satisfied nwith next to it.

Got to go man go can't beat these letters no more hope this helps but I don't want to see ya paying more than 50 grand to gamble on a hole in the ground so see if it makes sense for you and alwauys a big bunch of chokje dee can't have enough of that. fords are Forever

[ozzydom]

Got to agree with Foreverfords sentiments, the reason we used an excavator for our first pond was because it is within 10 metres of a Klong which gives us seepage to keep the pond at Klong level as a minimum.

We went down 3 and up 1 which put our levee walls 1 metre above the Klongs flood levees, alas ,twice in the last 2 years floods have exceeded even that so we surround the pond with 1 metre high mesh fencing to keep the farm fish in and wild fish out.

Our other 40 m x40 m ponds are 2 met down and 1 met up and we dug with a 6610 tractor , we had to introduce water to soften up the lower 60cm so the Ford could blade it.

The tractor blade glazes the base (unlike a macro ,that leaves fissures ) and the 4:1 angles allows the tractor to "walk " out. Cost for the tractor dug ponds 8000 baht each

[Foreverford]

Got to agree with Foreverfords sentiments, the reason we used an excavator for our first pond was because it is within 10 metres of a Klong which gives us seepage to keep the pond at Klong level as a minimum.

We went down 3 and up 1 which put our levee walls 1 metre above the Klongs flood levees, alas ,twice in the last 2 years floods have exceeded even that so we surround the pond with 1 metre high mesh fencing to keep the farm fish in and wild fish out.

Our other 40 m x40 m ponds are 2 met down and 1 met up and we dug with a 6610 tractor , we had to introduce water to soften up the lower 60cm so the Ford could blade it.

The tractor blade glazes the base (unlike a macro ,that leaves fissures ) and the 4:1 angles allows the tractor to "walk " out. Cost for the tractor dug ponds 8000 baht each

Oz get 5 Cat motor Grader ripper teeth and mount them (removeable with pins) on the back of the blade pointing backwards and rip going backwards and forget about stopping ever or getting any water to work even without a box blade just remove the teeth in about a minute and you can blade it up like puddding. You can get in touch and I'll send you photos of the mounts for the teeth. They are about the size of a half gallon milk carton cut in half. Forever Fords

[JurgenG]

Thank you guys for all these information. In two weeks time I'll be back to the farm and it's going to be negotiation time. It's a three party negotiation, the contractor, the translator (gf) and I. The contractor of course will push for the most expensive solution. My gf, being Thai, will have hard time to stand in front of such a "knowledgeable" man, so scare to say something stupid and lose face. So if I want to achieve something, I better get my facts straight.

The figures you all gave me make sense. One of my neighbour got a big hole in the ground digged for 300k, an other one for 60k, including a bit of landscaping. First I thought one of them was wrong, now I understand it's a bit more complicated ...

One important point, we don't have a tractor. So tractor or excavator, we will need to hire someone, just looking for the cheapest solution.

First question. Is it a problem for a tractor to work in the water ? In a rice country it sounds stupid but ... It's an existing pond, just very shallow and narrow, 2 m deep during good time, now end of the dry season maybe 50 cm of water at the deepest. The idea is to make it deeper, larger. Is the tractor solution still workable here ? An other stupid question, is there any chance that underground water (??) fill the pond when we dig it ? I just try to cover any objection the contractor may have to use a tractor Vs an excavator.

Second question, is it a right depth for a pond ? All the ponds in the neighborhood are down around 2m, so I guess if we still want to have water at the end of the dry season, 4m is a minimum, right ? Which basically means we will need to dig only 2-3 m.

Is any other objection the contractor may have to push for the expensive solution ?

[wagner54]

Can any of you guys give me contact info to have a pond dug in the Ubon Ratchatoni area. I've had a couple dug but am charged 42 baht a cubic meter and the dirt is leveled nicely around the ponds the way I ask, but I wanted some hauled approximately 500 meters to a road I was having built up and was charged 300 baht a truckload for that, the contactor hired 4 additional trucks and used his own 2 trucks plus his tractor to build the road. After reading this forum for awhile I think there has to be lots of better deals to be had, the only problem is I cant find them. Any info would surely be appreciated.Thanks in advance.

[IsaanAussie]

Can any of you guys give me contact info to have a pond dug in the Ubon Ratchatoni area. I've had a couple dug but am charged 42 baht a cubic meter and the dirt is leveled nicely around the ponds the way I ask, but I wanted some hauled approximately 500 meters to a road I was having built up and was charged 300 baht a truckload for that, the contactor hired 4 additional trucks and used his own 2 trucks plus his tractor to build the road. After reading this forum for awhile I think there has to be lots of better deals to be had, the only problem is I cant find them. Any info would surely be appreciated.Thanks in advance.

Wagner,

Last prices I got here in Sisaket. 22 Baht per cubic metre for the excavator (Macro), including spreading near the pond or loading. Soil sold for 180 baht per 6 metre truckload to the locals. Deal to be done with the truck drivers or more practically with an agent capable of organising enough to keep the excavator busy. In the last months ponds being dug have had soil transported up to 1.5 Km for the same prices.

Does that translate to Ubon, who knows? If you are still interested I can ask for you, PM me to discuss. Most Macros travel by truck and it is only some 50 - 60 kms for the transport to travel.

Isaanaussie

[wagner54]

Can any of you guys give me contact info to have a pond dug in the Ubon Ratchatoni area. I've had a couple dug but am charged 42 baht a cubic meter and the dirt is leveled nicely around the ponds the way I ask, but I wanted some hauled approximately 500 meters to a road I was having built up and was charged 300 baht a truckload for that, the contactor hired 4 additional trucks and used his own 2 trucks plus his tractor to build the road. After reading this forum for awhile I think there has to be lots of better deals to be had, the only problem is I cant find them. Any info would surely be appreciated.Thanks in advance.

Wagner,

Last prices I got here in Sisaket. 22 Baht per cubic metre for the excavator (Macro), including spreading near the pond or loading. Soil sold for 180 baht per 6 metre truckload to the locals. Deal to be done with the truck drivers or more practically with an agent capable of organising enough to keep the excavator busy. In the last months ponds being dug have had soil transported up to 1.5 Km for the same prices.

Does that translate to Ubon, who knows? If you are still interested I can ask for you, PM me to discuss. Most Macros travel by truck and it is only some 50 - 60 kms for the transport to travel.

Isaanaussie

That sounds great, I will pm you right now. Thank you

[JurgenG]

Update : Because it's an existing pond and there is water at the bottom, even only 50 cm at the deepest, contractor says we can't use the tractor (we asked a couple of them, all the same reply). Anyway thanks Foreverford and Ozzydom for your inputs.

To dig the pond (4m deep) we have negotiated 45,000 B, including a small canal 50 m linking to an other pond and a small dam (not including cement work) to regulate the level of the feeding pond and to avoid the new pond being filled by soil from upstream, what was happening until now.

Next major negotiation is the cement work for the dam. Any advises here ?