PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Bulverde sits on hard Edwards limestone over the recharge zone, north of San Antonio. This ground is built to swallow water, which makes a pond a sealing and siting job as much as a digging one.
Not by default. Comal County north of 46 is thin soil over hard Edwards limestone, and that rock is fractured and cavernous by nature. The ponds that work here are the ones where somebody found the clay, or built the seal, before the first bucket came out of the ground.
Bulverde places are big enough to put water somewhere sensible and steep enough to hold it with a short dam. The country falls toward Cibolo Creek and its side draws, and a pond tucked into one of those draws gets depth cheaply, catches a real watershed, and sits where you can see it from the house.
It is also ground where a pond earns its keep beyond stock water: wildlife, fire water, a view, and something for a place that is more homestead than ranch. Because we know going in that sealing is likely, the pond gets designed around holding water rather than hoping it will.
The Edwards under Bulverde is the reason San Antonio has water. It is fractured, jointed and in places cavernous, and it takes surface water down rather than holding it up. A basin cut straight into that rock without a plan will drain, sometimes overnight, and no amount of compacting fixes it.
So we test pit before quoting, every time. If your place has a pocket of good clay we use it, and clay off your own ground is by far the cheapest seal there is. If there is none, the answer is bentonite worked into a shaped subgrade or a liner, priced on the quote before you sign. On this side of the county nobody should be surprised by a sealing bill.
Most people have never had a pond built and do not know what the week actually looks like. Here is the whole thing, from the first call to the day it starts holding water.
Text or call with pictures of the spot and what you have in mind. Because the price list is published, we can give you an honest range on the first call, then put a boot on the ground to firm it up.
We walk the ground with you, find the draw the runoff already uses, and dig a test pit to see what is under the topsoil. On Bulverde ground that pit answers the only question that really matters: is there clay on this place, or are we sealing it.
You get one page with real numbers on it. Excavation, dam construction, spillway, transport, and any flagged contingency, all in plain terms. No allowances that balloon later, no asterisks doing heavy lifting.
Mobilization is usually measured in weeks, not months. The dozer and excavator arrive on a lowboy, we stage at the site, and from that morning the build runs continuously until the pond is done.
The dig itself runs two to five days on most builds. Topsoil is saved for the banks, the core trench goes in first, and the dam is built the slow, right way, in compacted layers rather than one loose push. You will see the pond take shape daily.
We do not leave until you have walked the finished pond with us. The dam, the spillway, the bank grades, the topsoil dressing, all of it inspected against what was promised, and corrected on the spot if it falls short.
Then you wait on rain. Hill country water arrives in storms rather than steadily, so a new pond can sit low for months and then come up in a single afternoon. A properly sealed basin keeps what it catches, which is the entire point of doing the sealing right.
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. In Bulverde you should plan on a sealing line and possibly a rock line, and both come off the test pit rather than off a guess. Access through an estate gate and where the spoil goes are the other two things that move the number.
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.
We would rather explain the number before you sign than after. This is the whole anatomy of a pond quote.
The number includes the pond, whole and finished: design against the watershed, staking, topsoil stripped and banked, core trench, compacted-lift dam, cut spillway, finish-graded slopes, and dressed banks. Getting the iron to your gate and the closing walkthrough are in there too.
What moves the number on a Bulverde job: how much sealing the test pit calls for, whether we hit rock that has to be broken out, gate and driveway access for a lowboy, and whether the draw needs the cedar taken out first.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Stock tank holding water, Marion
Bentonite sealing a pond basin
Half acre pond, LampasasFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Most Bulverde places are five to fifty acres with a house on them rather than a working section, and the pond people want reflects that. It is water you look at as well as water you use. That does not change how it gets built. The dam, the core trench and the spillway are the same discipline whether the pond waters cattle or just looks right from the porch.
The draws where a pond wants to sit are the thickest cedar and persimmon on a Comal County place, with agarita and prickly pear through them. Clearing is our main trade and we build ponds with the same crew, so the brush comes out and the basin gets cut on one mobilisation and one bill.
A sealed basin is a different build from the first cut. The subgrade is shaped and proof rolled, the bentonite is worked in and compacted rather than dusted over the top, and the banks are built so the seal is not left exposed to the sun above the waterline. Fixing a pond that will not hold always costs more than building one that does.
Comal County averages about 34 inches, and almost none of it arrives when you want it. Six feet at centre is where the chart starts. Eight or nine keeps a cold layer at the bottom, cuts evaporation and holds the algae back, and on a sealed pond it keeps the waterline well above the part of the seal that dries and cracks.
A new pond looks raw. Bare banks, water the colour of the ground it came out of, and a season before it settles. Get grass established on the banks before the first big storm and it clears faster and stops washing material straight back into the basin.
On a sealed basin the weak point is the ring of seal just above the summer waterline, where it dries and cracks. Extra depth keeps the water higher for longer, and a skim of topsoil over the upper seal keeps the sun off it. Both are cheap while the machine is still on site.
Out here the spillway earns its keep two or three times a year. Walk it after a big rain and look for cutting at the edges. Ten minutes with a tractor early is a great deal cheaper than rebuilding a dam later.
You find out 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. Nobody we have built for has regretted the extra depth.
When the dirt work is done you can keep the same crew on the finish work. These four add-ons turn a new basin into a finished pond.
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 put your bank into the basin.
Moving water stays cleaner. An aerator keeps oxygen through the whole column and holds algae back through a hot summer, which matters most on a pond you look at every day.
A hardened approach gives you a clean way down to the water and somewhere to back a trailer, without breaking the banks down. We shape and compact it while the machines are still on site.
Fish want structure and depth before stocking. While the basin is open we shape a drop off and a shelf, and on a sealed pond we set the structure clear of the seal so nothing sits against it.
There is nothing I can say to truly express my gratitude for the work completed! Working with Taylor and Stephen was very easy and they made my once overgrown and unworkable land into a beautiful park like setting.
Kenneth Barber, Google review
Amazing service and final product. Hunter, Jonathan and Dustin were the operators for both the tree mulcher and the rock mulcher. Their work completely transformed my property. My only regret is that I did not have it done sooner.
Byron Hairston, Google review
I would highly recommend this company to clear your land. The estimating process was quick, easy and straightforward. Their operator was on time each day and worked all day.
Clay Pritchett, Google review
Learn these six and you can grade any pond quote you are handed, including ours.
Saving the living top layer before the dig and dressing it back over the banks afterwards. On Bulverde ground there is not much of it, so what comes off is worth keeping, and it is also what we use to cover the top of a seal and keep the sun off it.
Clay you can roll into a ribbon in your hand. The soil that seals a pond, and the first thing we look for on the walk.
Texan for a working pond built to water cattle. Usually smaller, always practical, and built with the same dam discipline.
A keyway cut below grade under the dam and packed with clay, so water cannot travel beneath the structure.
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.
We build ponds across Comal County and the hill country north of San Antonio. A few of the places we work near Bulverde:
Pricing starts at $12,300 for a quarter acre at six feet with a 4:1 bank and runs to $39,500 for two acres, with an $8,000 minimum. On Comal County limestone you should plan on a sealing line on top of that, sized from the test pit and written on the quote before you sign.
Rarely on its own. That rock is fractured and in places cavernous, which is exactly why it recharges the aquifer. Ponds hold here when the basin is sealed: clay off your own ground if the place has it, otherwise bentonite worked into a shaped subgrade or a liner. The test pit tells us which.
It depends on the basin size and whether there is usable clay on your property. It is a real number and it goes on the quote from the start. What we will not do is quote as though the ground will hold and then hand you a change order.
There can be, mainly where a project disturbs a lot of ground. A normal pond on your own acreage usually does not trigger them, but we check rather than assume, and we will tell you what applies before anything starts.
On your own rural land, generally no, and agricultural water storage is exempt from most regulation in Texas. It changes if the pond dams a defined watercourse or sits in a floodplain, and a property inside a subdivision may have its own rules. We will tell you which applies before we start.
Six feet at centre is where the chart starts. Eight or nine is what we recommend here, because a shallow pond on this ground spends August warm, green and low, and depth is cheap while the machine is already in the hole.
Comal County averages around 34 inches a year, mostly in spring and autumn storms. Thin soil over rock sheds nearly all of it, so a decent draw fills a sealed pond faster than the acreage suggests. Most chart sized ponds fill over one or two wet seasons.
Often. Around Bulverde a leaking pond is nearly always the rock rather than the dam. We drain it, find where the water is leaving, shape and proof roll the subgrade, seal it properly and rebuild the banks. It is real work, and it is usually cheaper than starting over somewhere else on the same place.
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 and give you a written number with the sealing question already answered.