PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
La Vernia is where San Antonio acreage buyers land. Most of what we build here goes on five to twenty acres rather than a working ranch, and that changes the questions. Not how big can it be, but how big can it be before it becomes a drainage problem for the person downhill.
On a thousand acre ranch a pond is a dirt work question. On twelve acres off FM 775 it is a drainage question, a setback question and a neighbor question first, and a dirt work question fourth. Most of what goes wrong on small tracts goes wrong before anyone starts digging.
People ask how big a pond their land will take. The honest answer is that acreage barely matters. What matters is how much ground drains toward the spot, because that is what fills the pond and that is what has to get safely past it in a storm.
Twelve acres at the bottom of a draw can carry a bigger pond than sixty acres on a flat rise, because one of them collects and the other does not. We walk the contours before we talk about size.
If there is not enough catchment, a pond fills slowly and drops fast, and no amount of digging fixes that. Sometimes the useful answer is a smaller pond in a better spot.
Every pond has to spill somewhere. On a big place that is your problem and your pasture. On a small tract the overflow leaves your boundary, and where it lands is a driveway, a fence or a house pad that belongs to somebody else.
Most of this ground drains toward Cibolo Creek and its side draws. That is fine until a pond concentrates what used to spread out, and then a storm sends it through one gap instead of across a field.
We size the emergency spillway for the watershed rather than the pond, and we look at where the water goes after it leaves you. On a tight tract that sometimes means the pond ends up smaller than you first pictured. It also means it does not become an argument.
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 |
La Vernia ground is the same Wilson County sand as the rest of the county, so the same question applies: is there clay within digging depth or does the basin need sealing. On smaller tracts there is a second cost people do not expect, which is what to do with the spoil. On forty acres it spreads. On eight it has to go somewhere, and hauling it off is a real line on the quote.
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.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Basin shaping on a smaller build
Enlarging a pond that came out too small
Full pond on sandy countryFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
A quarter acre pond at six feet produces a lot of spoil, and on a small tract that is a design decision rather than an afterthought. It can become a pad for a barn or a shop, it can be a berm that screens the road, or it can be shaped into the bank. What it should not be is a raw pile parked at the fence line for three years. We agree where it goes before we start.
A new pond does not fill from the hose, it fills from runoff, and that means it fills when it rains hard enough to run. Depending on when we build and what the season does, you might be looking at water in a month or waiting until spring. We tell people this up front because the disappointment usually comes from the timeline, not the pond.
A pond you look at from the porch wants a defined edge, a shape that reads well from one angle and depth close in so it does not go green and shallow at the near bank. A stock tank wants an access slope and durability. Tell us which one you actually want, because building the wrong one to a high standard still leaves you with the wrong one.
Small tracts usually have a house, a septic field, a water line and a nice yard between the gate and where the pond is going. Tracked machines are heavy and they mark ground. We plan the route in, we ask where the septic and the lines run before we move, and we would rather take a longer way round than cross a drain field. Ask any contractor where they intend to drive.
Plenty of the older tracts around La Vernia came with a tank that someone dug decades ago and that has never really held. We chase leaks, rebuild dams and spillways, and enlarge ponds that turned out too small. We do not do dredging, cleanouts or silt removal. On sandy ground the usual finding is that it was never sealed, not that it silted up.
I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the work these guys did on my place. I have some very steep slopes and a lot of oaks and cedars. They used great judgement, not turning it into a field, using heavy machinery at a very fair price.
Ivan Allen, Google review
I would highly recommend Pierce Land Clearing. I mentioned to Bobby, our operator, that he was an artist. He took an overgrown piece of land and turned it into a beautiful landscape. He saw my vision and made it happen.
Monica Walker, Google review
We are really happy with the work Pierce Land Clearing did for us! They were quick to respond to our initial inquiry, gave a free estimate on the work we wanted done, and completed the work quickly. All the machine operators were very nice.
Jennifer Burrough, Google review
We work all of Wilson County and the counties either side of it. Sutherland Springs, Stockdale, Poth, Marion and Adkins are all inside our normal range.
It depends on your watershed, not your acreage. What fills a pond is the ground that drains toward it, so ten acres at the bottom of a draw can support more water than sixty on a flat rise. We walk the contours before we give you a size.
Not if the spillway is sized for the watershed rather than the pond, which is how we do it. This is the single most common mistake on small tracts. A pond concentrates water that used to spread across a field, and if the overflow is undersized it goes somewhere nobody planned. We look at where the water lands after it leaves your boundary.
It fills from runoff, not from a hose, so it fills when it rains hard enough to run off. That might be a month or it might be next spring depending on when we build and what the weather does. We would rather tell you that before you sign than have you watching an empty basin in August wondering what went wrong.
On a small tract that is a design decision. It can become a barn or shop pad, a berm that screens the road, or get shaped into the bank. If none of those work it has to be hauled off and that is a real line on the quote. We agree where it goes before we start rather than leaving a pile at your fence.
A quarter acre starts at $12,300 and takes two to three days. A full acre is $27,000 at five to six days. Both at six feet deep with a 4:1 bank. Sealing, if the sand needs it, and spoil haul off are separate lines and we show them separately. Minimum job is $8,000.
Yes, and we plan the machine route before we move anything. Tell us where the septic field, the water line and the electric run and we will work around them. A tracked machine across a drain field is an expensive mistake and it is entirely avoidable.
Send us the acreage and roughly where the low ground is. The first thing worth knowing is how much land drains to that spot, because that decides the size before anything else does.