Hamstermann's pond build

[GBBUDD]

Stop telling him to make it so safe, it is ruining my retirement plan. I have business cards being shipped out there to be right next to the pond. "Slip and Fall, call Paul"

AHH Shit , i does hurt but you make make smile,

but in all honesty its not a matter of if and to weave the wall is no big deal very simple. even if he doesn't want to rework down a couple rows starting the weave now will help.

ORRR is this a picture fubar. how many courses are you going? is the wall done and the camera angle makes it look like your only half way there. if the wall is done then its not so bad the walls not so tall compared to its base

 

[hamstermann]

AHH Shit , i does hurt but you make make smile,

but in all honesty its not a matter of if and to weave the wall is no big deal very simple. even if he doesn't want to rework down a couple rows starting the weave now will help.

ORRR is this a picture fubar. how many courses are you going? is the wall done and the camera angle makes it look like your only half way there. if the wall is done then its not so bad the walls not so tall compared to its base

That wall is done. I'll put another short wall back a bit on the shelf. The low wall is 4 blocks (2 feet) high and the upper wall will be 3 high, so 18. From the top of my concrete patio to the shelf that I'm making into a bench seat is 20 inches and the lower wall rises above that shelf by 4-6 inches.

I have 2 options to choose from with building the upper wall:
1) put down 2 inches or so of gravel and/or sand on the shelf and then build up the wall to be dead even with the cement and fill the space between the two walls with gravel and/or sand as additional pressure to hold the base of the wall

2) put the block directly on the shelf and stack the upper wall 3 blocks high, leaving the wall 2 inches below the patio, putting the gravel and/or sand at the base of it

I can also do 4 courses of block, but that presents a tripping hazard on the patio and makes it harder for plants to grow over the blocks from between the wall and the patio to soften the edges so I don't like that plan as much.

The shelf isn't dead flat, so I will likely have to do some leveling with gravel and sand anyway before building the upper wall, so I'll most likely go with option 1.

 

[GBBUDD]

That wall is done. I'll put another short wall back a bit on the shelf. The low wall is 4 blocks (2 feet) high and the upper wall will be 3 high, so 18. From the top of my concrete patio to the shelf that I'm making into a bench seat is 20 inches and the lower wall rises above that shelf by 4-6 inches.

ahhhh you should be ok good plan

I have 2 options to choose from with building the upper wall:
1) put down 2 inches or so of gravel and/or sand on the shelf and then build up the wall to be dead even with the cement and fill the space between the two walls with gravel and/or sand as additional pressure to hold the base of the wall

i would use a termination strip and secure the rubber to the side of the patio so you have water right up to the patio and that space from the wall to the patio can have a planting area. maybe even not install retaining wall cap but install boulders or with the retaining wall cap place a few boulders so it looks like the pond was there and you built up to it with the patio. in my video about how to hid your liner in the beginning is the same build your doing but my build had the wall behind the liner

 

[hamstermann]

Bog's mostly built. And I'm tired. It took 110 milk crates, 1.5 cubic yards of 6 inch minus river rock, most of my pre-existing rock pile and a day and a half.

 

[GBBUDD]

YOU HAVE BEEN A BUSY LITTLE BEAVER, To say the least, i'm sure everyone in Hamsters habitrail is sleeping good tonight.
it appears your going to have at max about a foot of stone above the milk crates?

if the bog wall you built with crates is the same height as is the milk crates in the bog then what will hold back the stone between the bog and the pond? is there another row of milk crates? i see you have plenty of extra liner on three sides, wondering if your building the pond up above the patio? bringing the water right up to yourself?

 

[hamstermann]

YOU HAVE BEEN A BUSY LITTLE BEAVER, To say the least, i'm sure everyone in Hamsters habitrail is sleeping good tonight.
it appears your going to have at max about a foot of stone above the milk crates?

if the bog wall you built with crates is the same height as is the milk crates in the bog then what will hold back the stone between the bog and the pond? is there another row of milk crates? i see you have plenty of extra liner on three sides, wondering if your building the pond up above the patio? bringing the water right up to yourself?

Good Guess! Yep, there's about a foot above the milk crates currently. I'm going to build up a wall of rocks on top of each of the shelves made of Milk crates, which will add to its height and hold back the water and rocks except in the very small waterfall from the bog to the pond. Final height will depend on which rocks I use. My larger rocks feel like 3 or 4 man boulders. I'll have to use some geo fabric for rock slings and get some of my sons to help lift it. When I asked for them to help today after they spent the last 3 and half days hiking in Arches National Park, for some reason they didn't feel like lifting heavy rocks.

or maybe I'll try to hunt down a log I can lay across the top row of milk crates and use that for holding back water and rocks. That could be cool too.

 

[GBBUDD]

my question is i se you have about a foot of rubber left that you can lift . So if the current horizontal laying rubber is turned vertical how is t going to be held up?

 

[hamstermann]

my question is i se you have about a foot of rubber left that you can lift . So if the current horizontal laying rubber is turned vertical how is t going to be held up?

The liner on the patio and the liner on the dirt bank opposite the patio is extra and will likely be cut off, leaving enough to tuck/roll into edges in case of settling. I'll probably save anything I cut off to use for patching in case it's needed.

The liner on top of the milk crates will probably stay where it is and sit under the rocks or a log that I'll use to raise the water and gravel level, then I'll foam between the rocks and/or log to make it water tight and be sure there's enough of a drop into the pond for a waterfall.

There will be a small strip of dirt between the patio and the edging for the pond&bog. That's where I'll bury pump cords, the pipe that brings water to the intake bay from my downspout, the sprinkler supply line for the front yard sprinklers, etc. and it's where I'll plant some creeping thyme or ice plant or something to trail over the rocks and liner edging into the pond. I've got a drip line running through there to water anything I plant in the dirt but not cause it to flood into the pond.

 

[GBBUDD]

The liner on top of the milk crates will probably stay where it is and sit under the rocks or a log that I'll use to raise the water and gravel level, then I'll foam between the rocks and/or log to make it water tight and be sure there's enough of a drop into the pond for a waterfall.

That's what I was affraid you were going to say. You want the liner/ divider between the pond and bog to run all the way up to the top of the stone other wise when pressure would normals start to build in the bog there's no way out for the water but up through the rock.
Even if you seam on a piece of rubber and it's not perfect it's still much better than being below the layer of rock.

 

[hamstermann]

The water still runs all the way to the top of the bog using foam between the rocks. Or am I not understanding what you're saying?

In other news, I found a solution to the pump vault not being tall enough for where I have the 2 inch line - and hopefully it can save other people some money.

On the left is an Everbilt sump pump basin from Home Depot that sells for $39.98 and is 18" wide at the bottom by 22 inches high. it's got a Pump Basin Lid that was $11.98 and has a slot that I can just put the plumbing up through. Total is about $52. I just need to drill holes in the side to make sure there's enough water infiltration to keep the pumps fed.

On the right is the Big Frog Tough Tank TT-15 which is 18.5" wide at the top by 17.5" tall and sells for $128.24 at halfoffponds.com but I got it in this Pondless waterfall kit. The plastic feels the same in both the tough tank and the sump pump well, but the sump pump well is half the price and is bigger. I was kicking myself for having wasted the money on the waterfall tough tank but then my wife and I talked about it and we'll save it to maybe put a pondless in the front yard someday.

Not much progress on the pond today. I folded the liner back and tried to bring the soil outside the liner up a bit and glued in some of the drainage pipe that will bring the gutter water to the intake bay. I'll wait to do the rest of it until I'm done filling the intake bay with rock and building the upper retaining wall so there's something for the dirt and liner to rest against.

 

[GaryMoz]

Bog's mostly built. And I'm tired. It took 110 milk crates, 1.5 cubic yards of 6 inch minus river rock, most of my pre-existing rock pile and a day and a half.

View attachment 163659
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How much stone are you putting into your bog, what depth will it be? I think I may have gone over the top with mine, it's about 700mm 2'4" and so far 9 bulk bags of stone with another 2 to go, so that about 9 tonnes.

What price is your stone? In the uk, for good rounded large pebbles I'm paying £150+ for the smaller 20-40mm £110+

 

[hamstermann]

Yours looks great!

How much stone are you putting into your bog, what depth will it be? I think I may have gone over the top with mine, it's about 700mm 2'4" and so far 9 bulk bags of stone with another 2 to go, so that about 9 tonnes.

There's nearly a cubic yard in those 27 milk crates that I filled with stone, plus another 1.5 cubic yards of six-inch minus stone, plus maybe half a cubic yard of the 3-inch minus I got for free, so I'm guessing about 3 cubic yards so far with roughly another 8 inches to foot of stone depth to put in.

The bog is roughly 6 feet 5 inches by 9 feet, so if my early morning math is correct, that works out to roughly another 2 cubic yards to put in.

Since weight per cubic yard varies with type of stone, I don't know how many tons that is because I don't know what types I have in there, but I know it's a variety.

The 6-inch minus river rock that I bought was about $145 per cubic yard and that was from the only place I could find it nearby that sells river rock in that size. There is another company near by that sells 8-24 inch river rock for about $65 per ton, but that seemed to big for use in the bog. I may use that for the pond shelves if I run out of the boulders I got for free.

I'll likely do another half cubic yard of the 6-inch minus, then step down to a yard of 3-inch minus. Still deciding if I want to use the free 3-inch minus that tends to be sharper and more crushed or buy the better quality 3-inch minus at $145 per cubic yard. After a cubic yard of the 3-inch minus I'll step down again to 1-inch minus at $100 per cubic yard but shouldn't need a full yard at that point. If I really want to cheap out I can get a ton of road base which is crushed 3/4 minus with sand for around $25 and then spend time sifting out the sand but that seems a poor option because of the sharper stone and the added time sifting.

 

[GaryMoz]

Yours looks great!



There's nearly a cubic yard in those 27 milk crates that I filled with stone, plus another 1.5 cubic yards of six-inch minus stone, plus maybe half a cubic yard of the 3-inch minus I got for free, so I'm guessing about 3 cubic yards so far with roughly another 8 inches to foot of stone depth to put in.

The bog is roughly 6 feet 5 inches by 9 feet, so if my early morning math is correct, that works out to roughly another 2 cubic yards to put in.

Since weight per cubic yard varies with type of stone, I don't know how many tons that is because I don't know what types I have in there, but I know it's a variety.

The 6-inch minus river rock that I bought was about $145 per cubic yard and that was from the only place I could find it nearby that sells river rock in that size. There is another company near by that sells 8-24 inch river rock for about $65 per ton, but that seemed to big for use in the bog. I may use that for the pond shelves if I run out of the boulders I got for free.

I'll likely do another half cubic yard of the 6-inch minus, then step down to a yard of 3-inch minus. Still deciding if I want to use the free 3-inch minus that tends to be sharper and more crushed or buy the better quality 3-inch minus at $145 per cubic yard. After a cubic yard of the 3-inch minus I'll step down again to 1-inch minus at $100 per cubic yard but shouldn't need a full yard at that point. If I really want to cheap out I can get a ton of road base which is crushed 3/4 minus with sand for around $25 and then spend time sifting out the sand but that seems a poor option because of the sharper stone and the added time sifting.

Thanks for the reply, the sizes are similar, doing the conversion I think I'm put 7.5 cubic yards in. 2 yrd3 of 4"-8" cobbles, 2 yards of 2 - 4" and the rest 1 - 2" pebbles. In terms of price per cubic yards the 4-8" and 2-4" would be around $350 , but i've seen it sold in the uk for double that price!. You can get cheaper but it would have to be rock and crushed rock with sharp edges but I didn't want that in the bog.

I must admit the pond is costing quite a bit more than I wanted, but I'm sure like you, I will be really excited about the the end results.

Good luck with it

 

[hamstermann]

It's costing me more than I wanted as well, but I'm trying to reduce costs by watching Facebook marketplace and local classified ads for free rocks. I do have a source for free small river rock but she's out of town this week when I'm rocking things in and filling in behind big rocks, so I'm using the $100 per yard 1" minus stuff that's supposed to have fewer sharp and crushed rocks in it. Unfortunately it does still have some, but I'm hoping with the geo fabrics on each side of the liner I'll be okay. They're not very big after all.

Here's another progress picture.

We've put in another 1/2 yard of 6" minus in the bog, added the log, started rocking, and I started the upper retaining wall.

We accidentally dropped a heavy rock on the flex PVC where it attached to the rigid PVC in the bog and the flex stuff moved, which suggests to me that only the bottom half of it actually glued in place. I'm guessing the fit wasn't tight enough and I didn't use enough glue so what I did use rand down and only glued the bottom of the flex pipe. How do I fix this? My thought was to fill a syringe with glue and inject it into the joint to try again but I'm not sure where to get needles and syringes (do you need a prescription to get them?), how their sizes work, or what size I'd need. There has to be a better way than that.
I guess it's time to hit the YouTubes and/or Amazon again. 🫤

We're also supposed to be in or near the 90's for the next several days, so that should be fun while slinging rocks and playing with plumbing. 🫠

 

[GaryMoz]

It's costing me more than I wanted as well, but I'm trying to reduce costs by watching Facebook marketplace and local classified ads for free rocks. I do have a source for free small river rock but she's out of town this week when I'm rocking things in and filling in behind big rocks, so I'm using the $100 per yard 1" minus stuff that's supposed to have fewer sharp and crushed rocks in it. Unfortunately it does still have some, but I'm hoping with the geo fabrics on each side of the liner I'll be okay. They're not very big after all.

Here's another progress picture.
View attachment 163746

We've put in another 1/2 yard of 6" minus in the bog, added the log, started rocking, and I started the upper retaining wall.

We accidentally dropped a heavy rock on the flex PVC where it attached to the rigid PVC in the bog and the flex stuff moved, which suggests to me that only the bottom half of it actually glued in place. I'm guessing the fit wasn't tight enough and I didn't use enough glue so what I did use rand down and only glued the bottom of the flex pipe. How do I fix this? My thought was to fill a syringe with glue and inject it into the joint to try again but I'm not sure where to get needles and syringes (do you need a prescription to get them?), how their sizes work, or what size I'd need. There has to be a better way than that.
I guess it's time to hit the YouTubes and/or Amazon again. 🫤

We're also supposed to be in or near the 90's for the next several days, so that should be fun while slinging rocks and playing with plumbing. 🫠

You can get large syringes on ebay, I'm not sure they will be fine enough to get up the gap. I guess there is not enough spare material to cut out the joint and redo it?