Well, not exactly true...
We have managed to complete a waterfall but don’t particularly like it.
Everything is going slowly because of a) so many other things to do and B) the temperatures here at present preclude doing anything outside, unless in the shade, for more than an hour or so a day.
We have a large urn on its side that is fed through the base from the pond. It is about 1.4 m away and 40 cm above the level of the water in the pond, sitting on an already constructed rock garden that goes to pond side. Being cheap, we made use of some old curved roof tiles that we had laying around for the waterfall itself, with one sloping down onto the next. The idea seemed fine but we quickly realised that we had a backwash problem moving from tile to tile so we had to line the tiles in order to prevent that. The liner didn’t look great so we then used gravel and (very) small rocks to try and improve the appearance. Then we found that we had to reduce the water pressure in order to prevent it going over the side of the tiles which meant, in the end, we had just a trickle instead of Niagara falls. To top it off, it looks more like a funicular railway.
Ingenuity often works but perhaps we should spend more time reading about others’ experiences.
Now we think… why not construct it in basically the same way as the pool and use a piece of liner as the base in a roughly rectangular cross section with loose stone holding down the sides. We are lucky enough to live near an unofficial stone quarry and have a source of flat stones that we could use on top of the liner as the “river” bed. Experience tells me that the water will run anywhere rather than the surface of the stone and then we had the great idea of using construction foam in conjunction with the rocks to form the bed.
Then we read the forum and find that there is actually something (“Great Stuff”) commercially available. Here in Bulgaria (it seems like) houses are constructed using foam (well, with other materials as well) and it is freely available and cheap. However, it is extremely unlikely that we would ever find such a specialised product as black waterfall foam. In fact, we think our colour (brown) would be better in conjunction with the stone.
So, is the construction foam the same, just a different colour (and, trying not to be cynical, a lot cheaper)?
Next thing is….. Foam is designed to fill voids. How do you prevent it trying to take over the world or do you just use small doses and hope?
Can we throw some gravel on top to integrate with the foam and fill up the spaces between the surface of the rocks and the edge liner?
Lastly, we would have the last stone overhanging the pond and the liner base could stretch as far as possible but what about the liner sides. How do you stop the water coming off the sides of the last stone? Oh, and how do you ensure a sheet rather than a narrow fall?
Should we give up on the ingenuity and read a comprehensive article about it somewhere?
We have managed to complete a waterfall but don’t particularly like it.
Everything is going slowly because of a) so many other things to do and B) the temperatures here at present preclude doing anything outside, unless in the shade, for more than an hour or so a day.
We have a large urn on its side that is fed through the base from the pond. It is about 1.4 m away and 40 cm above the level of the water in the pond, sitting on an already constructed rock garden that goes to pond side. Being cheap, we made use of some old curved roof tiles that we had laying around for the waterfall itself, with one sloping down onto the next. The idea seemed fine but we quickly realised that we had a backwash problem moving from tile to tile so we had to line the tiles in order to prevent that. The liner didn’t look great so we then used gravel and (very) small rocks to try and improve the appearance. Then we found that we had to reduce the water pressure in order to prevent it going over the side of the tiles which meant, in the end, we had just a trickle instead of Niagara falls. To top it off, it looks more like a funicular railway.
Ingenuity often works but perhaps we should spend more time reading about others’ experiences.
Now we think… why not construct it in basically the same way as the pool and use a piece of liner as the base in a roughly rectangular cross section with loose stone holding down the sides. We are lucky enough to live near an unofficial stone quarry and have a source of flat stones that we could use on top of the liner as the “river” bed. Experience tells me that the water will run anywhere rather than the surface of the stone and then we had the great idea of using construction foam in conjunction with the rocks to form the bed.
Then we read the forum and find that there is actually something (“Great Stuff”) commercially available. Here in Bulgaria (it seems like) houses are constructed using foam (well, with other materials as well) and it is freely available and cheap. However, it is extremely unlikely that we would ever find such a specialised product as black waterfall foam. In fact, we think our colour (brown) would be better in conjunction with the stone.
So, is the construction foam the same, just a different colour (and, trying not to be cynical, a lot cheaper)?
Next thing is….. Foam is designed to fill voids. How do you prevent it trying to take over the world or do you just use small doses and hope?
Can we throw some gravel on top to integrate with the foam and fill up the spaces between the surface of the rocks and the edge liner?
Lastly, we would have the last stone overhanging the pond and the liner base could stretch as far as possible but what about the liner sides. How do you stop the water coming off the sides of the last stone? Oh, and how do you ensure a sheet rather than a narrow fall?
Should we give up on the ingenuity and read a comprehensive article about it somewhere?
