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I'm also looking at a house with a pond in the backyard. There is a drain close to the pond that the seller says was built specifically for that reason. They stated if the pond starts to flood it will direct water out to the street and storm sewer system. This pond is also shared with 1 neighbor. I'm a little skeptical because the house was listed in May of 2011, dropped in December for a few days and then went off the market. They just listed it again the other day. It has only had 2 realtors and never went off Zillow (I know when they switch realtors a lot it could mean it had a bad inspection). If I had to guess the pond is about 15-20 yards behind the house. The seller claims they have never had flooding but I'm still worried. The concerns others brought up about having a bad neighbor also raise some red flags.
I dig any property w/ a water body (especially when stocked w/ potential food source) in it so long the house sits on the uphill from it.
But that is just me.
I really love the house.. just a little skeptical because of its price. It's in a very rich suburb selling for less than $150k. Some other houses around it are selling for $300k (granted these have an extra bedroom and 1 or 2 extra baths). I couldn't see it being worth half the price. Maybe the pond actually brings the value down? The seller insists there have never been flooding issues and the house looks OK.
Im looking at a house with a pond too and i think they are a very cool feature to the land. You can go fishing and have some good times with the kids. I like how they bring in ducks or you can get some yourself too
I have a small 60' x 30' pond on my property. It is 6' deep at its lowest point. The area is very rural with only six houses along a mile of road. The pond is very close to the road, about 15'. I'm concerned about liability. I do not want to fence it in. I'm looking for advice. Thank you for your help.
There's a few topics going on this now. Responding to the original poster...but may apply to the others....check to be sure about any dam situation. Basically, if there is one. And then what the future holds. They can sometimes look so natural you don't even notice the dam.
Some ponds are spring fed, or at least collect the water draining through the ground to that location. If you try to remove the pond you will end up with a weedy marsh and it won't be pretty. The OP has a special concern though, since his pond is right along the road. Putting up a fence might not be easy there, and it might be costly. I wish I could provide an answer, but have no clue. It is even possible that building the road is what forced a pond to be there.
Some ponds are spring fed, or at least collect the water draining through the ground to that location. If you try to remove the pond you will end up with a weedy marsh and it won't be pretty. The OP has a special concern though, since his pond is right along the road. Putting up a fence might not be easy there, and it might be costly. I wish I could provide an answer, but have no clue. It is even possible that building the road is what forced a pond to be there.
I don't see the fence and road thing in the OP's post at all. It is in the question of the third poster on this...the second person to ask questions in addition to the OP. This is the trouble with hijacking even similar quesitons. People get confused about who they are responding to or what they're responding about.
Buying a house with a pond on the lot, things to look out for?
The ponds are finished and look fabulous. We already had a 35 ton excavator on site to dig the pond out, so I decided it would not cost much more to dig a second smaller lily pond in a lower area. The ponds are spring fed so we built a waterfall from the larger, upper pond to the smaller, lower one. The smaller pond is lined with 24" - 36" boulders. The water flow is not excessive, however it cascades down over a series of rock falls in such a way that it looks like it is gushing.
I am in the process of planting underwater aquatic plants to provide a food supply for the painted turtles I intend to introduce into the pond next year after the aquatic plants become established. There is also a large sand beach built that will give them a place to lay their eggs. I am also looking into what kinds of fish that I can stock. I am particularly interested in mosquito control. I did put in a dozen 4" shunbunkin goldfish in the lily pond that can be seen swimming around. A snapping turtle has moved in, so the goldfishes futures are in question.
The pond filled up in time for this spring's frog mating season. From the noise they made, the new ponds were an enormous success. They are now filled with thousands of tadpoles and a walk around the large pond will have frogs jumping into the water every few feet.
A large earthen dam was built to turn the marshy depression into a real pond. We created an overflow spillway so that if the outflow pipe were to become clogged, the water level will not overflow the top of the dam.
This was a major excavating job that took a month to build, grade and then seed with grass. We brought in over a hundred boulders ranging from 2' to 6' in size to line the lily pond and place around the pond site. The big surprise was how excited everyone living along the road have been with the project. Cars slow down to give an enthusiastic thumbs up and people have actually driven up my long driveway to knock on my door to say thank you for the wonderful improvement to the road. It became a community project that everyone felt a part of.
The area around the ponds is surrounded with apple trees that are spectacular masses of white blossoms for ten fragrant days in May. I will be adding flowering crab apples and cherries, four or five clumps of white birches and a few sweeping runs of forsythia to give that first vibrant splash of color after our long and cold Upstate New York winters that are so desperately welcomed every year.
For the long term long after my days are finished, I have a small nursery area where I am growing paper birch, sugar maple, sycamore and oak seedlings. I wish I could be around fifty years from now to see how they will have grown. They always say you plant a tree not for yourself, but for your children and the generations to follow. Every time you see a magnificent allee of shade trees, remember they are only there because some person long passed had a vision of what they would become. These are the gifts we leave for those who follow us.
The first water lily leaf reached the water's surface last week and should have flowers within a month. I just received three more lilies by FedEx today that will go in tomorrow. The next project is to plant emergent pond side species of plants.
Never before having been anything other than a small area of cattails that no one had ever noticed, we felt they now deserved to be named. So the "Shaker Ponds" have changed the fabric of our road in a way I never anticipated. People have often said that our road is the most beautiful in the county and ours is the most beautiful county in the Hudson Valley. The ponds have made it even more beautiful. There is such satisfaction in having conceived and built something that makes our world a little better place.
I can't wait to get the painted turtles in!
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Buying a house with a pond on the lot, things to look out for?
