PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Buda sits right on the Balcones fault. East of the interstate is blackland that holds water on its own. West of it is limestone close to grade. A test pit tells us which one you have bought.
It depends on which side of the fault your property sits, and a few hundred yards can change the answer. Buda is on the escarpment, where Hill Country limestone meets Blackland Prairie.
West of Buda the Edwards limestone sits close to the surface with thin soil over it. Rock like that is fractured, and a basin cut into it can lose water as fast as the sky puts it in. No amount of compaction fixes rock.
This is the honest bit that a lot of pond quotes skip. If your site is on the rocky side we will tell you before you spend anything, and we will tell you what it would take: clay won from elsewhere on the property and packed into the basin, or a liner. Both are real costs and both beat digging a hole that never holds.
East of Buda, out toward Niederwald and Dale, the ground turns to Blackland Prairie clay. That clay seals itself as the basin is cut and compacted, no liner and no bentonite needed, and the chart prices hold up with very little added.
Plenty of Buda properties have both on them. Where the pond goes can matter more than how big it is, and part of the site walk is finding the spot on your place where the ground is on your side.
Most people have never had a pond built and do not know what the week looks like. Here is the whole thing, from the first call to the day it starts holding water.
Send photos of the spot, a rough size, and your town. You get a ballpark from the published list the same day, and if it sounds right we set a time to walk the property. No pressure loop, no form-and-wait.
We walk the ground with you, find where water already wants to sit, and dig a test pit. On the Buda escarpment that pit is the single most important part of the process, because it tells us whether you are on clay or on rock.
A real number in machine days: what the dig costs, what the dam costs, what happens if we hit rock, and what the clearing adds if the site is brushed up. The price on paper is the price, and any rock contingency is spelled out instead of buried.
A lowboy shows up with the dozer and excavator, usually within a few weeks of a signed quote. We need a gate the iron fits through and a spot for the trailer, and we handle the rest.
Two to five working days for most ponds. Topsoil gets stripped and saved, the core trench gets cut, the dam goes up in compacted lifts, and the basin takes shape a bench at a time. You are welcome on site every day of it, at a safe distance from the swing radius.
Before the machines load, we walk the pond with you: dam, spillway, slopes, and the topsoil dressed back over the banks. If it does not match what was quoted, that is the moment we make it right.
Then you wait on weather. Clay has to be worked dry to compact, so we book around the forecast. It is the frustrating part, and it is what decides whether the dam holds or seeps.
Published, not hidden behind a form. Prices and build times are based on 6 feet of depth at center with a 4:1 bank.
| Pond Size | Starting Price at 6 ft depth, 4:1 bank | Build Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 acre | from $12,300 | 2 to 3 days |
| 1/2 acre | from $19,200 | 3 to 4 days |
| 3/4 acre | from $23,300 | 4 to 5 days |
| 1 acre | from $27,000 | 5 to 6 days |
| 1 1/4 acre | from $30,400 | 6 to 7 days |
| 1 1/2 acre | from $33,800 | 7 to 8 days |
| 1 3/4 acre | from $36,800 | 8 to 9 days |
| 2 acre | from $39,500 | 9 to 10 days |
Prices are based on six feet of depth at centre with a 4:1 bank. East of the interstate a sealing line item is rarely needed. West of it, on thin soil over limestone, the test pit decides whether the basin can be capped with clay won on site or whether a liner is the honest answer. Either way you see the number before you commit.
Size it, tell us what to do with the dirt, then draw the pond right on a photo of your land. Your estimate comes back by email, along with a preview of the finished water.
No surprise line items. Here is how the number breaks down on every quote we write.
Siting and design against your watershed, staking, topsoil stripped and saved, the core trench, the dam built in compacted lifts, the spillway cut and shaped, slopes finished to mow, and topsoil dressed back over the banks. Machine transport is in the quote, and so is the walkthrough before we leave.
What moves the number on a Buda job: whether the test pit finds workable clay or limestone, whether the basin needs a clay cap or a liner, how far a lowboy can get in, whether the site needs cedar cleared first, and how far the spoil has to travel.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Shaping the basin, Liberty Hill
Stock tank holding water, Marion
A new pond taking on waterFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Already have a pond that will not hold water? Start with why a pond will not hold water, see what a rehab involves and what one cost, and if the soil is the problem the bentonite calculator gives you the load count before anyone comes out.
Buda has filled in fast, and the acreage left is usually five to twenty acres with a house already on it. People here are not building a stock tank, they are building an amenity: something to look at from the porch, swim in, and put a dock on. That changes where the pond goes and how deep it needs to be, and it makes the water clarity conversation matter more than it does on a working ranch.
On the Hill Country side of Buda a pond site is usually under cedar before it is anything else. We clear land as our main trade and build ponds with the same crew, so the juniper comes out and the basin gets cut on one mobilisation rather than two contractors and two transport charges.
On the escarpment a price given over the phone is a guess. We dig first. That one hole tells us whether the ground seals itself, whether there is enough clay on the property to cap a basin, or whether rock means moving the site or lining it. It costs you nothing and it is the difference between a real number and a hopeful one.
Six feet at centre is where the chart starts and six feet holds water. On this side of Texas, in a dry summer, six feet also gets warm, green and low. Eight or more keeps a cold layer at the bottom and comes through a hard year still looking like a pond. On rock the depth is governed by what the limestone allows, which is another thing the test pit answers.
A new pond looks raw. Bare banks, cloudy water, and a season before it settles. Get grass on the banks before the first big rain and the pond clears faster and stops feeding silt back into itself.
If you want water you can see into, that starts with the build rather than a chemical. Depth, a shelf, banks that do not slump, aeration and grass on the watershed do most of the work. Retrofitting clarity into a shallow warm pond is a losing game.
Every pond starts filling in the day it is finished. Grass cover upstream, stock fenced off the approach and a small forebay to catch sediment before the main basin will buy you decades.
You learn what a pond is worth in the third hot August. Six feet gets low, warm and green. Nine feet keeps a cold layer at the bottom and comes through it. Everyone we know who went deeper is glad they did.
The build does not have to stop when the water shows up. These come with the same one-crew, one-call approach as the pond itself.
Bare banks wash, and thin Hill Country soil washes fast. We seed and mat the disturbed ground with a mix suited to Central Texas so the first storm does not undo the shaping.
Moving water stays cleaner, and on an amenity pond that is the whole point. An aerator or fountain keeps oxygen through the column and holds algae back through a hot Buda summer.
A dock or a hardened bank turns a pond into somewhere you use. We can shape and compact the ground for one while the machines are on site, which is far cheaper than bringing them back later.
Fish want structure and depth before they want stocking. We leave brush piles, a drop off and a shelf while the basin is open, so the pond is built to hold fish before you put any in.
I could not be more pleased after hiring them to clear cedars off my land. They did exactly what I needed, and my place now looks amazing. I learned having the right equipment is key, and Pierce Land Clearing has it.
chris tiroff, Google review
I think when people undergo such a large project, they have an unrealistic expectation of how it is going to turn out. This was not the case, it turned out to be exactly as I hoped it would. Everybody I have dealt with so far in this company has been great.
Richard Franco, Google review
Preston and all the folks at Pierce were absolutely great to work with. The job was done on schedule and as quoted, and done well. Price was very fair as well. Highly recommend Pierce Land Clearing.
David Madeksho, Google review
Six terms you will hear on the site walk, and what they actually mean for your water.
The dam built up in thin layers, each packed tight by the machine before the next goes on. The opposite of a pushed up pile.
The armored low route storm water takes around the dam instead of over it. The difference between a rain event and a rebuild.
Four feet of run for every foot of drop. Gentler banks are safer and easier to mow; steeper banks get more depth from less dirt.
The dry dam height above full pool, the safety margin that keeps a big storm inside the pond.
Every acre of ground that sheds rain toward your pond. It, not the hole, decides how fast you get water.
The water level at the bottom of the spillway, the highest the pond is designed to hold day to day.
Pricing starts at $12,300 for a quarter acre at six feet with a 4:1 bank, up to $39,500 for two acres, with an $8,000 minimum. East of the interstate those numbers usually stand. West of it, if the test pit finds rock, sealing or a liner is a real added cost and you will see it itemised before you commit.
It depends which side of the Balcones fault your site is on. East of town, on blackland, almost always. West of town, on shallow limestone, often only with a clay cap or a liner. That is exactly why we dig a test pit before quoting instead of after.
We stop and tell you. Then we price the options honestly: cap the basin with clay won elsewhere on your property, move the pond to better ground, or line it. What we will not do is dig a hole that cannot hold water and hand you an invoice.
Usually, on the Hill Country side. Cedar takes over anything nobody mows and pond sites are always the part nobody mows. Because clearing is our main trade the juniper and the basin are the same trip and the same bill.
On your own rural land, generally no, and agricultural water storage is exempt from most regulation in Texas. That changes if the pond dams a defined watercourse, sits in a floodplain, or falls inside the Buda city limit as part of a development. We will tell you which applies before anything starts.
Plenty of our Buda customers do, and it is worth designing for from the start rather than retrofitting. That means depth, a shelf you can stand on, banks graded so they are not a slide when wet, and aeration to keep the water moving. All of that is cheap while the machines are there.
Around 34 inches a year here, mostly spring and autumn. A chart sized pond on a decent catchment fills over one or two wet seasons. On the rocky side the catchment sheds fast, which fills a pond quickly but also means the spillway has to be built for it.
A quarter acre pond is two to three days on site. An acre is five or six, two acres nine or ten. Clearing, if the site needs it, is on top and we quote it separately so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
Tell us roughly how big you want the water and where you are thinking of putting it. We will walk the ground, dig a test pit to find out which side of the fault you are really on, and give you a written number.
