The cost of redoing a pond & politics - Page 2 - LawnSite.com™

wurkn with amish · #11 10-01-2011, 01:25 PM

What you all are forgetting is this isn't your company pricing the job. Could be one man could be 12 who cares. Homeowner can accept or decline, no need to get opinion from employee's husband who built a pond on the side. I just built a 10' by 15' by 3' and it took me and 3 guys 7 days with a 30ft stream.

nepatsfan · #12 10-01-2011, 01:43 PM

If guys are getting prices that you feel are too high, why don't you quit your job and start your own business. Should be a slam dunk for you. Do everything for half price, buy a bunch of new equipment, and put the stuff up for sale in the spring when you go out.

tadpole · #13 10-01-2011, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nepatsfan

If guys are getting prices that you feel are too high, why don't you quit your job and start your own business. Should be a slam dunk for you. Do everything for half price, buy a bunch of new equipment, and put the stuff up for sale in the spring when you go out.

I don't believe that anyone has posted a comment on the price being too high. Without knowing all of the project details along with an on-site survey, no one can determine whether or not a price is realistic. So where did your comment come from? Are you pi**ed at someone?

nepatsfan · #14 10-01-2011, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Niagara Falls

My wife's boss has a pond on their property that they haven't done anything with for years because they could not figure out how to deal with algae. It was there when they bought the property.

When she can over and saw ours with the little bit of algae, she couldn't believe we have won the battle.

So she went home and spoke with her husband about how nice ours looked, so they got a quote to get theirs back up and running.

It has about a 10 foot stream and the actual pond is about 10 feet in diameter and maybe 2 feet deep.

The quote came in at between $5&6K....she flipped. The quote came from the place I bought all my pond materials. She showed my wife the quote and my wife called me and asked if we used a skid loader, a Kubota loader or a Jumping Jack Tamper. I used a mini excavator, shovels and a home made hand tamper.

I mean....I cut my own grass with my honda pushmower and my neighbors grass is about the same size but they said he needs a weed whacker and a blower and they are gonna use one of those big mowers and stuff and he said it would be 50 bucks. i think I'm gonna call my best friends, neighbors, brothers, cousins, bosses wife's landscaper and tell them it's too high and he doesn't need one of those big mowers when the yard is only 10k square feet.
I felt I was being put in a difficult position because I didn't know exactly what the quote was for, so I told her to bring it home.

What they were quoting on was to completely re-do the water feature, but I thought they were going overboard with the equipment requirements.

I told my wife that because I'm not "in the trade" I couldn't really give some professional advice, and said to tell her boss that if they wanted to do it themselves I would offer some advice, but I would not get in between them and the contractor.

So now they are going to "sit on it" over the winter and decide how they want to proceed in the spring. I have a feeling I will be pressured into something I don't want anything to do with.

Sorry for the long rant, but I felt it needed to be expressed.

Here's my big question.....should I call the contractor and tell them that I think they are quoting needless equipment and the time required to do the job, they quoted 10 days. I know I will get involved......
Also, my wife's boss is a "money" family in our town.

Here is what I am referring to tadpole.....if you know what needs to be done and you want to straighten out the contractor because you put a pond in your backyard, then just go all out and go into business for yourself and take all the work. If the homeowners feel the price is too high then go to someone else. In this business there is always gonna be someone cheaper.

tadpole · #15 10-01-2011, 08:33 PM

I believe that the whole thing boils down to the fact that the OP feels that he is going to be pressured to help out because this is his wife's boss. I know from earlier posts by Niagara that there is no one within 200 miles that is really qualified in pond installation, so this contractor? may not really know as much as he needs to know. Niagara has stated that he really doesn't want to be put in the middle and is really looking for moral support on how to avoid any involvement. He, I am sure, would certainly not consider himself qualified to call himself a Pond contractor. I don't know from experience for I have always led the single life, but I have heard that wives call really exert pressure if it is something that they want done.

nepatsfan · #16 10-01-2011, 08:47 PM

fair enough but I am not sure why it would be necessary to get involved. If my wife told me something like that I would wish them good luck.... I wouldn't even contemplate speaking with their contractor. To each his own though. If I painted my house and my wifes boss got a quote from a company to paint their house with all kinds of scaffolding, I'm not going to call my wifes boss' painting contractor and tell him what equipment to use and how long it will take them to do the job. If they don't like it....move along.