PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
We built a quarter acre pond outside Burnet in four days, and every stage of it is photographed on this page. That build is the straightest answer we can give to what a pond here costs, takes, and looks like.
The county line between granite and limestone runs right through here, and your pond build depends on which story your tract is telling.
Toward Kingsland and the lakes, Burnet ground is Llano Uplift granite: decomposed on top, solid underneath, sometimes shallow enough to matter. Solid granite means hammer days; decomposed granite digs fast but drinks water, which is a bentonite conversation.
Our documented build worked this exact geology and held, and the method is on this page.
Toward Bertram and up 281, the ground shifts to limestone benches with real clay in the draws. These sites build closer to the textbook: chase the clay, core the dam, compact in lifts, and the published list holds without drama.
The draws that feed the San Gabriel headwaters are particularly good pond ground.
From first phone call to a stock tank holding August water, here is exactly how a Burnet County pond build runs.
It starts with photos of the site and a rough idea of size. We answer with a same-day ballpark off the published price list, and if the number works for you, we schedule the site walk. No sales funnel, just a conversation.
Burnet sits on the seam between granite and limestone, and the walk tells us which one you own. We probe the draw for rippable rock versus hammer rock, read the soil for clay content, and check the watershed that would feed the pond. Working ranches get a working answer: where the tank should sit for the cattle, what it costs in machine days, and whether the ground seals itself or needs a clay plan.
The quote reads like a plan, not a mystery: dig, dam, spillway, and any contingency for rock, each priced in machine days. If clearing is needed first, it is on the same sheet at our published day rates. What is written is what you pay.
Within a few weeks of signing, the lowboy delivers the iron. All we need from you is gate access wide enough for the machines and somewhere to drop the trailer. Everything else is on us.
Most ponds take two to five working days. The sequence never changes: strip and save the topsoil, cut the core trench, raise the dam in thin compacted lifts, shape the basin. Watch as much of it as you like from outside the swing radius.
The build ends with a walkthrough, not an invoice. Dam, spillway, slopes, and dressed banks, checked against the quote with you standing there. Anything off gets fixed before the lowboy is loaded.
A Burnet County tank fills on the storms that feed Buchanan and Inks, hard bursts with dry stretches between. Sized to its watershed, a pond catches most of its water in one storm season. Grass the dam the week we leave, watch the spillway do its first work, and trust the draw to deliver, because out here it always eventually does.
Published, not hidden behind a form. Prices and build times are based on 8 feet of depth at center with a 4:1 bank.
| Pond Size | Starting Price | Build Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 acre | from $14,000 | 2 to 3 days |
| 1/2 acre | from $23,000 | 3 to 4 days |
| 3/4 acre | from $28,500 | 4 to 5 days |
| 1 acre | from $33,500 | 5 to 6 days |
| 1 1/4 acre | from $38,000 | 6 to 7 days |
| 1 1/2 acre | from $42,500 | 7 to 8 days |
| 1 3/4 acre | from $46,500 | 8 to 9 days |
| 2 acre | from $50,000 | 9 to 10 days |
Our four day Burnet build is the local reference: quarter acre, Uplift-edge ground, finished and holding. Solid rock, if found, is hammer time flagged up front. Sandy granite basins may take bentonite, priced as a line item.
Slide in the size, depth, and bank slope you have in mind and see roughly how much dirt has to move and what that runs. Works for anything up to 2 acres.
3:1 is the steepest bank and moves the least dirt. 5:1 is a gentle wade-in bank, easier on cattle and safer around kids, but it takes more digging to get the same water.
This is an estimator, not a quote. It figures the dirt you would move for a bowl shaped pond at the size, depth and bank slope you picked. What you actually pay depends on whether we hit rock, what shape the ground is in, how far we have to haul spoil, and whether the spot needs clearing first. Rock is the big one around Austin: if we run into granite or solid limestone we have to bring a hammer out and that gets billed by the day. Call us and we will come walk it.
Every quote we write splits the same honest way. Here is what is inside the number and what gets flagged separately.
Every quote covers the complete pond: watershed-matched siting, staking, saved topsoil, a true core trench, a dam raised in compacted lifts, a shaped spillway, mowable slope finishes, and banks dressed with the topsoil we saved. Transport of the machines is included, as is the final walkthrough.
Hammer time when the dig finds granite or solid limestone that will not rip, flagged and billed by the day. Clay borrow or bentonite when the basin runs thin on seal, priced at design. Cedar and mesquite clearing at published land clearing day rates when the site starts brushed, and spoil stays on the ranch in nearly every build we do out here.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
The Burnet build: dam work, day two
The Burnet build: cutting the basin
Lampasas, 30 min north: 5 days
Liberty Hill, 25 min southeast: 2 days
The finished product: water that staysFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Day one stripped topsoil and cut the core trench. Day two built the dam in compacted lifts while the excavator benched the basin, the stage you can see in the photos above. Day three finished the cut and shaped the banks to a mowable grade. Day four dressed topsoil back, cut the spillway, and loaded out. No mystery, no months, and the owner watched all of it happen.
Burnet quotes do not have to be theoretical: same county, same geology band, same machines. When we walk your ground we are comparing it against dirt we have actually moved here, which is why our day counts land where we say they will.
Buchanan and Inks set the mood in this county, but they are not on your tract. A pond is: stock water through the drought years, a fishing hole the grandkids do not need a boat ramp for, and the kind of improvement that shows up in the appraisal. Build it 8 feet or deeper and the summer sun stays beaten.
Most ponds we build around Burnet are working stock tanks first, and the design shows it: approach grades cattle can walk, depth that outlasts August, and a dam that ignores hooves. The fishery can absolutely come too, but out here the pond earns its keep the day the first trough goes dry and the herd walks to water instead.
Burnet County rain arrives in capital letters a few times a year. A tank matched to its watershed catches those events and holds through the quiet months; one oversized for its draw stays low and disappointing. We size to the runoff first, which is why our tanks ride full while bigger holes nearby sit half empty.
The dry years are the reason the tank exists, so depth is not negotiable: eight feet or more at center where the ground allows. Deep water stays cool, evaporates slower, and keeps both stock and fish alive through the summers that empty shallow tanks. Every extra foot of depth is a month of August water.
Bare dams do not survive Burnet storm season, so grass goes on immediately, matting on the steep faces. Then the biology: minnows and bluegill establish first, bass follow a season later into a pond that can feed them. Respect the order and the tank doubles as a fishery for decades.
Tank sites out here usually start as cedar and mesquite thicket. We clear them as a Burnet clearing crew, grubbed or mulched clean, with the live oaks left standing and unwounded. The finished site is graded and dressed ranch ground, not a scar with water in it.
A pond is dirt work first, but it does not have to end there. One call covers everything from grass on the dam to fish in the water.
A new dam faces its first Burnet storm alone unless grass gets there first. Seeding and erosion matting close out every build, locking the slopes before the rains test them, and turning raw dirt into turf the cattle can walk by next spring.
Stock tanks grow algae in the August heat unless the water keeps moving. A bottom diffuser keeps oxygen up and the water sweet for cattle and fish alike, and on a headquarters pond a fountain earns its place every evening.
A dock sounds like lake talk until the grandkids show up. Plan it during the dig and we will set the shelf and grade while the basin is dry, so a simple fixed pier lands level over water deep enough to matter.
Stocked in order, forage first and bass a season behind, a Burnet tank becomes the fishing hole the county lakes cannot match for convenience. Five minutes from the porch, never a crowd, and the fish grew up on your grass and your rain.
I highly recommend Pierce Land Clearing. They have the right equipment and professionals with skills required to make your property look wonderful.
Reggie, Google review
We cannot say enough good about the incredible service we received. We have 30 acres we are preparing for our future home that has never been lived on or maintained. Bobby listened to our vision.
Stephanie Cantrell, Google review
I had such a great experience with this team. Not only did they do a marvelous job but they are good people. Taylor is very personable, honest, with an amazing work ethic. His team is hardworking.
Dean Volkman, Google review
The site walk comes with vocabulary. Here is what the crew means when they say it.
The dam built in thin packed layers instead of one big push. The reason a forty year old Burnet County tank is still a tank.
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.
The lakes ring around Burnet, and the crews already working it.
Yes: a quarter acre build finished in four days, photographed at the dam work and basin cut stages on this page. It is the reference we quote the county against.
It priced off the same published list on this page: quarter acre from $14,000 at 8 foot depth, 4:1 bank. Your tract may add granite or bentonite variables, and the site walk settles that before we quote.
Look at your rock: pink and rounded means Uplift granite, gray and layered means limestone benches. Either way we probe the actual pond site on the walk, because the county changes character within a mile.
Eight feet at center minimum, and we like ten where the site allows. Evaporation takes several feet a year out here, and depth is the defense that works with no moving parts.
Ranch and acreage ponds almost never in Burnet County. Sites on named creeks or mapped floodplain get checked on the walk, and moving fifty yards usually clears anything we find.
Same trip: cedar off the draw, roots grubbed, pond dug, dam grassed. Our clearing crews already work 281 weekly.
Send photos and a rough size. We will compare your ground against the build we already finished here and give you a real number.