Would like some input on what the cost should be to build a lake that is 450 X 350' in size with 20' of average depth. The site is 3-8% grade, and will require appox. a 28' dam on the low side appox. 400' in length. If I am figuring correctly, around 120,000 yards of dirt will need to be moved?? I would like some input from others as to what a rough cost would be to do this. There is a couple feet of topsoil and plenty of clay below that to work with and no rock will be encountered. Please advise as to what equipment would be best suited for this project. Thanks
I rough figure that the dam will take less than 30,000 yards depending on how it lays with 3:1 slopes. Are you figuring on excavating the rest of the pond to a specified depth? What will you do with the excess spoil?
My guess based on the info is the dam will need 10 to 14 thousand yards of dirt. Not knowing how much topsoil has to be removed over the area etc there are some unknown variables. if its 120k yards , your looking at 250 to 300 grand. Just to build the dam I would figure 50 grand. Generally around here we figure 10 to 12 grand per acre plus cutting in the key way. So a 3 acre lake would be in the 40 to 50 grand range depending on the lay of the terrain. If your area is somewhat flat and the inside has to be hogged out for volume , that can get pricey. I am working on a 1.5 to 1.8 acre lake now that's going to run about 7 grand but the land was in the owners favor. In years past the same job else where could hit over 20.
My figures with 3:1 slopes on pond is about 95,000 yds³. If your dimensions of the dam itself are accurate, that would be about 40,000 yds³ compacted or roughly 53,000 yds³ excavated. If I was bidding I would probably have three Quads with 18 yd Ashland's, two 45,000 LGP finish dozers, and a 210 hoe just in case. Probably take a month, I'd guess around $3/yd³. I've done hundreds of dams, none this big, but its just more dirt.
400x28x10 ft top width ÷ 27 equals 4100 yds³. 400 x 90 ft (3:1 30 feet high) x 28 ft (each slope is a triangle, put them together you have a square) ÷ 27 equals 37,333 yds³ for slopes gives you 41,000 yds for the dam.
I figured the base of the dam to be 60' wide and the top to be 12' wide. A similar dam we build for NRCS that is 100' long similar height etc has about 2500 yards , estimated by the NRCS engineer. I could be way off , but this could be a learning experience. Hopefully others will give input as well.
For the pond. 3:1 slopes, 450-120=330, 350-120=230, 330x230x20 ÷27 equals 56,000 yds³ 450+350 =800x60(length of slope)x20 ÷27 equals 35,000 yds³. Pond excavation will be around 90,000 yds³.
Base of a dam 28 feet high with 3:1 slopes and 10 foot top will be 190 feet wide at the base.
That sounds like a nice site for a lake JBGASH . Around 3.5 acres of water when finished . I would probably keep the max water depth around 20 feet and average around 10 . Hard to judge yardage without looking at the site but from what you describe of the dam specifications I'm guessing 30,000 yards would build it . 28 ' tall at it's deepest point and narrowing down & getting more shallow at the end's and 400' long . Last lake I built had 2 acre of water on top . Dam was around 25,000 yards . Total cost $ 40,000 .
For slopes, for instance a 1 to 1, every foot you go up, you go over 1. If this dam was a 1:1, which would be impossible to build, 28' high would be 28 feet each side plus the top width. 28+28+12 =68 feet wide. A 3:1, still steep but achievable, would be 28x3= 84' each side plus 12 foot top would be 180 feet wide at base.
I'm glad I don't have to excavate, place, and compact fill for $1.60 per! I'm going to do a job next summer 70,000 yds³, pick up and haul 1200', open the can, dump on the go, other guy is going to level & pack, I'm going to get $3/ yd.
CDUB, Yes, the customer would like a 20' average depth if possible, there is plenty of area to loose any excess spoil. This job is outside of my normal line of work and is a huge amount of dirt to move so I just don't want to short myself in giving him a reasonable bid.
To many variables to figure , TD25 may not be moving the dirt 150' , and 1.60 per sounds cheap but the scope of the work may not have warranted more $. Everything is relative , 2.65 seems a going rate per yard , rock excavation is about 185$ per yard that is around here. At 3 bucks per how far is the move? I do know this , given a topographical map , and about 1 hour on a CAD system and I can narrow this down within plus or minus 5% on the yardage , and I always add the 5% back plus. Given the yardage figures 100k , based on the CAD , I would add at least 5% to 10% . So my bid price would be around 307,800$ for this type excavation. As stated without a visual or plan , we're shooting in the dark. I do know , a nearby lake was built , 8 acres surface water , dam was about 400' , at a cost of 130 grand, but the lay of the land was again in favor of the owner. We have valley's that run from 0 to 40' in a 400' run were all you have to do is key , and dam across. Strip vegetation etc.
Dickjr, what is the proper way to key a dam? The terminology that I am familiar with is core a dam but I think they are both the same meaning.
Thanks for your input, Dickjr. I was hoping that other guys are charging what we're getting up here. That's right where I would be with a bid as well, as long as a site visit didn't tell me otherwise. I will say for certain though that the dam yardage I would figure an extra 20% and that would for sure be $3/yd³ or more if it had to be tested and pass compaction tests. The general excavation might be able to be done cheaper if the spoil could be wasted within a 200' radius or so, maybe could be $2-2.50 per. No less than that though.
When we cut a key way , we go down to solid rock , any layers that have dirt in between have to be removed. Usually use a hammer, and you can feel when the hammer is on solid rock. Rarely we can cut down in clay and its suitable to build on. The length of the key way has to be past the water level into each side of the dam . Since we deal with rock on this a lot , the key way can cost as much as the dam. Excavator is the best and fast way for us . Bucket then hammer , bucket then hammer till its on a non permeable substructure. If there is water coming between the ledges of rock that all has to go. Then we coat it with valclay , and start lifting with clay applying valclay to the sides along . As many under ground veins n such that are around here , sometimes no matter what's done it leaks. Remember the Corvette museum? Underground water erosion. Sink holes are everywhere.
Keying a dam is cutting a core trench down the center of the area where the dam will be built. Depth depends on ground conditions, usually 2-4 feet. On a dam this size, I would think a core trench would be unnecessary as long as stripping operations were done properly and the base area was ripped and compacted thoroughly AND only the best fill would be used for the majority of the inslope on the wet side.
I'm glad I don't have to deal with that sort of mess. Does not sound like fun. Do you always have to dig til you find solid rock? How far do you go down before you call it acceptable if you're not finding rock?
Shimmy , some of the key ways have been up to 15' deep past the length of the dam by 15 or 20 feet. Its a roll of the dice sometimes you can get away with just damming up a holler , sometimes you can cut and cut and fill , compact and it leaks faster than a 6" rain can fill it. That said with the sink hole / underground caverns etc in Ky , lake building can be a challenge. No matter how good you are or try the lay of the land or under ground can make you look like an idiot.
What do you use to move the dirt? Scrapers, wiggle wagons, dozers? Just wondering. I'm thinking to go down 20' might get tricky if the ground is the least bit greasy.
Shimmy1, on this job I was going to use a 750c Deere Dozer, 953c loader of which I own and rent a couple large ejection scrapers. I also agree with you on the fact if it gets wet and now with winter here it could be a bit of a challenge. But on the other hand, I always enjoy a challenge.
We usually use an excavator to dig out the key way or a 953 works well. Throw that dirt and rock on the back side of the dam use it for a filler. Then push up from the inside on each side leaving the center open in case of a decent rain. Last thing close the center. Usually one or two D6R size machines . The one I'm currently on , we used my D39EX and a 850H Case. 2 acres plus surface water and we have 74 hours in it as of today.
Yair . . . as I mentioned on another thread my old head struggles to understand the relevance of even mentioning the area of a lake . . . all that matters is the type of dirt and how far it must be shifted. As others have noted the area of the impoundment will be dependent on the site. I only mention this because on other sites (and in one or two instances on here) I see figures bandied around about lake sizes and costs and, at times, posters do not make it clear if they are referring to cubic yards (or meters) of water stored or the actual cubic meters in the embankment . . . two potentially hugely different numbers when comes to cost per mega litres or acre feet of water. A case in point is an impoundment built by the US Dravo Corporation in Northern Australia . . . at full supply level there are about 245,000 acres of water and yet the earth and rock embankment is just under two million yards. Cheers.
I think it , referring to lake size , comes down to the owner wanting to say " my lake is X amount of acres". One other thing , lots of times we build ponds / lakes for watering stock. Setting up a pipe and tank system that runs on gravity. The amount of stock to be watered requires X amount of water surface . Say there are just shy of 330,000 gallons (US) per acre foot, I forget how many gallons per animal per day are required , but I think this is why we talk about the area of surface water. I also think I see your point , if the material is not suitable to build a dam , then why build it.
This pond JBGash is looking for info on will be about 3.5 acres surface water in the other excavated pond. As far as how many acres it is expected to be to top of spillway, he has never said. I could figure out how many acre-feet of water will be in the excavated pond if anyone wants to know.
This EXCAVATED pond area will hold approx. 56 acre-feet of water, or 18,180,000 gallons.
I think scrub is referring to people pricing a pond by the surface area or volume of water impounded. I've never understood this myself. One 3 acre pond could cost any number of times more to build than the next one. JB Gash, What size and type of scrapers are you going to use and how far will the average haul be to waste your excess. Will you have to place it in some fashion? 90,000 yds is a heck of a lot of dirt to make go away.
Shimmy1, you are correct it will be appox. 3.5 acres in size. Just today I found out that the one end (not the dam side) has a large trash dump that was filled in appox 20 yrs ago, in addition the owner's septic system and main water line will need to be relocated before we can start on the project. The trash dump really brings a new twist to the project. I am trying to convince the owner to size the lake down to avert excavating the trash dump, so far he is not receptive to this idea. What would you guys do with this trash issue?
Time and materials with a healthy mark up
On the dump I mean. There are a number of unknowables there.
It wasn't to big of a deal . We used the WABCO elevating scraper to excavate , move & place 95 % of the dirt . That rig will move a yard of dirt for pennies on the dollar . My cost moving the material with the scraper would have been around .50 cents a yard for the most part . Water area was two acres . Every bit of dirt from the basin went to build the dam .Had sand stone on the bottom of the basin . My biggest worry was running out of clay to build with but ended up having enough in the end . of the Longest haul was about 500 feet . Dam was 25,000 yards . Max depth of water was 20 feet and the average was around 12 foot deep . Also used dozer , excavator , & farm tractor with disk and box blade . JBGASH needs to figure out what it will cost him to move a yard of dirt . The 750c dozer and 953 loader will both be handy . In my opinion a Motor scraper is a must have for a project like this . I see some of these 627's have monthly rental rates on them . Looks like most want around $ 20,000 a month . http://www.machinerytrader.com/list...ATERPILLAR&bcatid=4&Pref=0&Thumbs=1&scf=false Also on a job like this I would want the weather conditions in my favor . Would probably start in May or June when the ground is drying out from spring time . That sounds like a good job your headed to Shimmy1 .
CDUB, prolly will rent the biggest ones I can find from the local John Deere dealer with tractors to handle them. I think a large double unit is around 24 to 36 yards but that is a guess. The dirt will have to be leveled out and spread. The haul distance is 800' min
Yair . . . Thanks CDUB , that is exactly what I meant. Cheers.
Td25c, what is the capacity of the scraper in the pic?
22 Yards .
Hogging off a hill like I'm going to do it a completely different animal than digging a pit. I'm not sure if tandem scrapers are going to be the way to go. MAYBE if you have a pushcat that can get both pans loaded in 200' and then push you up the hill it might work. I am pretty confident in saying I don't believe even a 9560 R weighted up to 65,000 lbs is going to be able to pull 180,000 lbs of dead weight out of that hole. JMHO.
You might be able to get the first 10' cut out with the tandems but (pardon the pun) it's going to be all uphill from there.
It took me a while to convert all the math to metric but Shimmy is on the money. With the info available my math was within 5 cence of shimmys. As for gear if it where me 2 men two 623 ellervaterd scrapers and a d8r
Even off the top my head I was thinking about a $1:80 a metric cube
Do you know what type of trash is dumped in there JB? Construction/demo, household? I am sure you're aware but proceed with caution on excavating that dump. The last thing you want is some hazardous material becoming your issue. I would suggest the owner hire a geotech firm to pop some holes up and down gradient of the dump and test the samples, it's not that expensive relatively speaking for the size job, very cheap compared to the liability. Like you said, the owner really needs to stay clear of that dump.:cool2
excavate the dump... I'd be going over my risk vs reward with this one. I see a whole pile of things that can go wrong, and not much reward when they go right. Some borings down to the intended excavation depth would help, but your dealing with placed fill atop trash. I'd hate to see the pond / lake flood the old dump and make a giant mess. In other news for moving that amount of dirt a pair of open bowl pans in the 15 - 20 yard range and a 20-25 ton dozer would have that done in a month.
CM & stump jumper, the trash dump is household waste to my knowledge, but there could be other items in it that no one knew about, that could really be a risky ordeal as you say. A good thing that I just found out is that there is a 4" rural water main line laying directly above that trash dump, this will help keep some distance from the dump. This same water main is also directly under the area the dam needed to be built, now the dam will need to be moved inward into the hill to clear the water line, this will be considerably more dirt to move.
Not looking at the site and not knowing all the variables but loosely based on your description I would guestamate a cost of 40k to 60K .....it's a pretty large hole in the ground with a big dam. Compaction is important and your soil is much different then what i am used too. top soil movement matters and what happens with the spoil also can be a huge factor...in my neck of the woods that a small pond, not a lake...good luck..Pond building is fun...
JB concerning the trash dump, I'll go into more detail on the soil borings. The purpose of the bores up and down gradient would be to sample the groundwater coming in and going out to determine if anything nasty is there. The bores also give an idea of how deep the fill is which is an added bonus but like site bores they only give you an "idea" of what's there. I would also assume your state DEP would want to be involved in the process of excavating the trash, if nothing more than approving a remediation plan for the job. I've been involved in the process of testing an old C&D landfill for a client before purchase, their plans were not to excavate but use the property for other uses and not disturb the old landfill. We took a couple of soil borings and installed permanent sample wells, 2" PVC. They sampled the water up gradient and down gradient from the wells. This site turned up clean, no hazardous or volatile organic compounds. The borings and testing cost around $5K at the time but this was a few years ago.
Where on earth are you coming up with these numbers?? There is a MINIMUM of 20,000 yds³ in the dam itself (he says it's 28 FEET high) and that's not even figuring a key or core! I don't know for sure about other areas but if you're placing compacted fill, you better be getting $2.50 per measured yard or $2 actual dirt moved yardage (these are about 30% different). Then, if the dam only takes 20,000 yds, you still have another 70,000 yards to move 800 feet according to earlier posts. You'd have to move that for $.50 per yard?
My family had a five, +-, acre pond built in a wooded area. They picked a deep ravine, so the pond goes from stream depth at the head to 20' deep at the dam. The dam is 100 yards across and the pond has some small ravines coming into it. The contractor cleared the mostly brush and some trees in the bottom, pushed out a very thin layer of topsoil, installed an over fill pipe, and built the dam with predominately red clay dirt from the bottom of the pond. Oh, and he also built a small island in the shallow end. All the work was done with a dozer. Price? $2500.00 us dollars. That was a good price even in 1965! How times and prices have changed! To make comparison from 60's money to todays value, my simple multiplier is times 10. So, same job today, 10X2500=$25,000.00. Just thought you might be interested, not that it helps anyone figure prices today.
It is interesting the rise of costs, I would bet that would convert more closely to 40grand upwards of 45grand. Not being argumentative according to on of my economics teachers , every 10 years everything doubles in cost. 2500 to 5000 , 10 years later 5000 to 10000. I have thought of this often , look at the cost of a pickup truck , gallon of milk etc. I will say excavation costs has risen considerably in the last 10 years , equipment is higher , fuel is higher, parts and service. But the owner operator is not making more. We were Christmas shopping tonight , my wife commented on the amount of money I had put in my excavating account , I responded if I paid every bill I had and paid my January and February payments I would be broke. I remember taking a D6H out and running it for 80$ per hour. Now they are trying to get 150 and people are crying over that. 150 is more than fair if not about 50$ per cheap for a D6 size modern machine.
Two years ago when I had a D7H we were getting $160 per hour. I think that machine should be worth that. We don't have an exact science as to how we figure hourly rates, maybe should, but we do fine and nobody complains. Have more than enough work to do as well. If I had a 6H, I would probably try for $135. I surely think that machine would be worth that much.
Around here,if someone mentions excavate around a dump site where there will be running water,RUN,and don't look back! Somehow water is going to find its way into that mess,and somehow that mess will be your mess.