Heaping Excavator Bucket Capacity?

[MarkDarvin]

Hey all, I'm an effective amatuer when it comes to running equipment. I'm planning to undertake my own pond dig next year. I'm going through the motions of calculating how much dirt I need to move and then backing that into how big of a digger I need to get it done in 5 days. The question I have is this:

How much dirt can I actually dig per heaping scoop with a 1.3 yd bucket if I have good dry clay (not sticky, no rocks, no mud). I have a lot of experience (10 days on an excavator) digging dry clay on my property, and I can get way more than a level bucket out with each scoop. I'm wondering if I can do 2 yards with a heaping 1.3 yd bucket per scoop, or what that number could reasonably be for estimating purposes.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I'm also open to hiring the project out. I'm going to price it both ways and weigh the differences. I've got a call out to the local excavator guy to see what he thinks of the project.

 

[cutman]

Based on my experience, I’d say a heaping scoop could be up to 30% more than bucket capacity. I’ll ask some of my friends who do this professionally.

 

[buckdeer1]

If it's in a completely new area alot of guys around here use a scraper if bigger or dozer if smaller

 

[Drycreek]

You can probably get two yards by heaping it up, but as a lifelong dozer, hoe, and motor grader operator, as well as a contractor, don’t figure on it. Always cut yourself a little slack or you will be over budget. I don’t know your situation, but I would use a dozer if it’s good ground, that way you place your dirt where it needs to go and somewhat compact it at the same time. That said, a contractor that does that type of work will probably be quicker and do a better job than an effective amateur. No offense Mark, but when I need an electrician I hire one, because as an electrician, I’m a damn good dozer hand.

 

[yoderjac]

I think it may depend on how you want to design your pond and the purpose. For a farm pond to water livestock and such, there is sound advice above. If I was going to build a pond for fishing, I would want structure. I would want and irregular bottom as a start presuming you are working in clay soil.

If you are going to use an excavator, you may want to get more than one bucket. I'm fairly new to and excavator and have only owned one for a few years. I got a JD 35g with a long arm. I got this 3.5 ton because I can easily trailer it between my farm and retirement property with my existing truck and trailer. I primarily use it for driveway and logging road maintenance and for habitat tasks like digging stumps. I can do a lot with it, but something like digging stumps takes a lot of time. If I did not have the transport consideration, a 50g would be much more efficient for my use.

I like to have both a digging and grading bucket available depending on what I get into. It only take me a couple minutes to change buckets.

Sounds like you are planning on renting equipment. I don't know how old you are, but here is something to think about. I often wear out before I predict, so rented equipment would sit idle more than I predict. I'm getting to the age where it is less a question of what I could possible do and more a question of what I will actually do.

 

[Mennoniteman]

If you have a good excavating contractor available I'd definitely go that route. You will get more bang for your buck. I just watched a friend go through this process of doing his own digging, and it was an expensive lesson.

 

[MarkDarvin]

If you have a good excavating contractor available I'd definitely go that route. You will get more bang for your buck. I just watched a friend go through this process of doing his own digging, and it was an expensive lesson.

I'm starting to come to that conclusion. The logistics get real sketchy as these projects swell in size. It's not a deal breaker to lose a day on a $375/day small digger. It's a whole nother story to lose a few days when you've got $2500/day rental equipment sitting there and you get rained out or your help doesn't show up.

I'm still getting help on calculating the volume of dirt. I was off. I may tweak the size of the pond as well to get the cost down. Right now, the contractor I talked to thought worst case scenario I'd be looking at $20k for the dig, and I'd still need to buy fish, structure, a bubbler, grid power, and getting my cabin retrofitted from 12 volt to grid power.

I don't want a giant pond. I just want something big enough to provide a couple places to throw a few casts, sit in the shade or have a campfire on shore. Also, small enough I can effectively manage it through harvest, trapping, and corrective stocking.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Are you saying about a half acre?
Your biggest concern when hiring someone is to get them to dig it when you want to do it rather than when they want to do it. For a pond it's important to dig it in the driest month of the year. And when you have excavating equipment working on your land a lot more gets done, and gets done the way you want it, if you stay close by and keep an eye on things.
The advantages of hiring someone is that the daily rate stops when the equipment stops, and they break less stuff, and if it breaks it's their cost and responsibility, not yours. A fellow rented a Kubota 95 and his son put diesel in the def tank. It was a $12k bill.

 

[MarkDarvin]

Are you saying about a half acre?
Your biggest concern when hiring someone is to get them to dig it when you want to do it rather than when they want to do it. For a pond it's important to dig it in the driest month of the year. And when you have excavating equipment working on your land a lot more gets done, and gets done the way you want it, if you stay close by and keep an eye on things.
The advantages of hiring someone is that the daily rate stops when the equipment stops, and they break less stuff, and if it breaks it's their cost and responsibility, not yours. A fellow rented a Kubota 95 and his son put diesel in the def tank. It was a $12k bill.

I'm aiming for a quarter acre. The tough part is, I think my water level is going to fluctuate upwards of 8' between high water and multi-year drought. Right now there are no signs the 3-year drought is going to end. I've got a static water level down around 8'. I've got to dig some test holes to verify exactly where the sand/water layer is in that spot.

It's very heavy clay down there, so we're planning to be pretty aggressive with the slopes outside the couple spots I'm planning from which to fish. So I'm planning to dig 8' below the static water level so my pond doesn't dry up. I'm hoping we don't have to go deeper than 16' feet total. I've got no less than 4 government agencies claiming jurisdiction on this, so it's gonna be an exercise in government gymnastics.

 

[Mennoniteman]

50 years ago my father put in a 1/2 acre horseshoe shaped spring-fed pond on the farm with a stable water depth of 9 feet, stocked with shiners and largemouth. We had a 14 foot aluminum row boat and a wooden dock, a lot of fishing, swimming, and skating happened here over the years. 1/2 acre is a really nice size to hold fish.