with a low budget of 40k to buy and transport a excavator does anyone have any suggestions of what would be a good start for mostly land clearing and building a pond
how mechanically inclined are you? what type of land? What type of clearing? What size of pond? Any local dealers for parts? Equipment breaks down and you are going to need parts at some point.
As I have said in other similar threads, it is all about parts availability to me. $40k is a pretty high end budget IMO.
i can do minor things and can weld if that need is to come and around north Carolina Cat and Deere are king I was looking at a older 1990s cat machine and some early Hitachi machines the type of land is mostly flat with a few slight inclines I think theres 4 cat dealers within 2 hours of me and around 3 deere dealers and its gonna be bout a acre and half pond
Full pond excavation is quite a bit of work compared to a depression + building a dam. I bought a CAT 225 back in 2006 to dig my ponds shown here: http://i.imgur.com/iXMdzJz.jpg I also dug a 1/2 acre pond down the road at my brothers house. I paid $23k for my 225, and have about $4000-$5000 in repairs/maint on the machine. I'll never get my money back, but I did all the excavation work myself, so way cheaper than paying someone I suppose. With your $40k budget, I'm not sure what series/size you should be looking for, but for me, the 225 ended up being the right size. 235 would have been nice for the WOW factor, but I did a lot of logging where the 225 could sneak in areas the 235 could not. The 200 series are nice because they are pre-computer, easy for people like me to work on. Issue is they are getting up there in age, and used parts are getting harder to find as stuff is scrapped. I guess just be aware, there are some parts on your future excavator that you just won't be able to replace with a new part, because the new parts could be more than $40k... It's tricky buying this old large equipment for personal use.
with a $40k budget I'd look for something in the 30 ton size range, if you're only planning on needing to move a few times it should be fine.