The rain will help with the softening up the dirt easier for you to dig
The rain will help with the softening up the dirt easier for you to dig
From this day forward you will be known as "Pickerel the Destroyer".
All of your work shows a high level of skill and quality.
Are yo plants going too set on you collar and where in SC are you I lived there as a kid and never saw any orange clay I lved in Charleston when young
LOL...Thanks for the laugh BWG. The old maddox was a 2 1/2 pounder that my wife brought home. I replaced it with a 5 pounder, and I can do a lot more damage with it...to the pond, not the maddox. Before the rain hit last night I started digging for the bottom drain and hit what feels like solid granite at 5 ft. depth. I need to go a couple of inches deeper, so I hope this big boy is up for it.
Last edited by pickerel; 12-14-2018 at 07:29 PM.
No, you won't see red clay in the low country. I grew up on St. Simons Island, GA and we didn't have it there either. I live just south of Greenville, and our land is more like north Georgia. I grew up calling this "Georgia red clay," but I imagine a lot of the southeast has it when you get away from the coast.
With no shelves, plants are a challenge. My plan is to hang pots from the sides. I am going to mortar in big stones on the collar and set stainless steel eyebolts with big washers on the back side into the mortar just on top of the collar, under the stones, and a few inches under water. I found these very heavy duty 5 gallon feeding buckets at Tractor Supply, and I think they will work really well. Trimming spent water lily leaves will be so much easier with the pot on the side.
After several weeks of rain we finally have a week of clear weather, so I'm working hard while I can. I had to chisel out a lot of rock to set the bottom drain and pond return plumbing. It was a pain, so I bought an electric jackhammer to get me through it. I have all the plumbing glued in, and I guess the next step is to start back filling. I have waited so long to get to this point that I kind of hate to cover up all my good work.
Here are a some pictures of my progress so far.
Well it's raining AGAIN for the next three days, but we've finally had enough dry weather to get some work done on the pond. My wife didn't like the idea of building an artificial hill in the yard to bury the SG and MB, and I have to admit that I never could quite visualize it either. So when she suggested building a couple of planter boxes to hide the barrels, I jumped on the idea. They are made from composite decking, and the lids hinge up for easy access. I still have to cut the openings for various pipes, but each board is removable to make that easier. The barrels will still be partially buried. The tallest box is 20" high...the height of a normal chair. She will probably put some nice potted plants on them and it'll be a good place to sit close to the pond. A short waterfall will flow out of the MB in the shorter box. In the background you can see my edging stones where I have been playing with arranging them to the shape of the pond.
I also got my little pump house built next to the house. By turning the return manifold down at a 45 deg. angle, it gained a couple more inches of space to pass between the enclosure and the big holly bush. The bottom panel in the center is removable for access to the lower 3-way valve and pump's priming pot. All the other panels are screwed on and removable if necessary. I've still got some trim work to do but at least it's protected from the weather now. I have ordered a 6 ft. long stainless steel piano hinge for the lid, and it's supposed to be delivered this afternoon. The next thing will be trenching, but the wait for good weather continues.
Last edited by pickerel; 03-08-2019 at 01:19 PM.
Wow look at that filtration top notch
Very nice work
So nice... Your DIY skill is amazing! Thanks for sharing.. I am taking notes
hp.
Nice solution. You planning a drain line away from the house if/when a leak happens?
I would be worried about a leak that could release significant flow next to the house when your not aware of it. The pump will be running 24/7 and it could make a real problem for the house where you haven't ever had one before.
I would consider some sort of shed floor that would contain and direct the water either into a 4" flexible drain line that gets the flood as far away from the house foundation as possible by gravity. Gravity will your best friend here, it would be much better than an electric sump pump that may never work 2 years from now.
Where does your waste water go?
Dang, there's always something else to worry about! The waste water will come out the side of the enclosure and flow to a gutter downspout at the corner of the house. Right now my pump is on a 2" thick pad of 16x16 pavers. I suppose I could make a floor out of concrete up to the height of the pavers, but I'm not sure that would give me enough height to gravity flow over to the gutter. You can see in the picture that it wouldn't take a lot of concrete to fill in the little bit of space between the pavers and the bottom 2x4.
Not that I want thousands of gallons of water dumped next to the house, but there is a french drain that carries ground water around the basement and flows into the yard 30 ft. from the house in back. Is that any consolation?
Can the existing drain pipe at the gutter downspout be lowered near the house and still maintain enough slope to drain?
If you tightly lined the inside of the enclosure for the first 10" above the floor, and assumed the first 10" of the enclosure as an emergency reservoir, you could run the drain pipe almost flat on top of the ground to the downspout drain pipe. You would plan on propulsion head buildup inside the shed to push out the flood to the drain pipe. Your pump might be flooded, but most of the flood would be routed away from the house. It may never be needed, but it would make you sleep better.