- Joined
- Sep 30, 2024
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 10
- Country
This is an old cement pond, located on the west side of my house in Salt Lake City. I believe the pond was built in the 50s or 60s. The main part of the pond is about 15’x15’ with a shallow inlet sort of thing coming out the south side of the pond (you can see it in the last photo). I’m just guessing on the size because I can’t find the actual measurements I took and it’s dark outside now.
I believed the pond to be about 3 and a half feet deep with maybe 6” to a foot of gravel at the bottom. I have only drained the water twice, but never cleaned the gravel. This summer I had someone helping me and he insisted on removing all of the gravel in order to clean it then return it back into the pond once cleaned.
It looks like there used to be a waterfall so I planned to remove the ivy from the lava rock and restore the waterfall. I thought we could finish this project in less than a month. Ha ha ha.
Here it is drained (June). There’s smelly black sludge, a layer of rotting leaves, and dried algae. I’ve started cutting back the ivy.
MYSTERY #1: WHAT IS THIS CRYPT?
We started emptying out the gravel, and boy, was I wrong about the depth of the pond! We kept digging and digging, and digging. I got pretty excited because it looked like maybe this was deep enough to be able to swim in!
However, at about 3 feet down, we hit 6 rusted “pipes” sticking up out of the gravel. I thought they were possibly the remains of 6 old fountain heads.
We removed a few more inches of gravel and discovered what seemed to be a concrete rectangle/wall covered in sheet of clear plastic.
It looked like a window screen had been placed over the top of the concrete rectangle, on top of the plastic. Under the screen was a rusted chain link fence. It’s crazy.
I’m going to pause here to see if anybody can guess what was under the plastic.
When I continue, should I comment below or start a new post?
I believed the pond to be about 3 and a half feet deep with maybe 6” to a foot of gravel at the bottom. I have only drained the water twice, but never cleaned the gravel. This summer I had someone helping me and he insisted on removing all of the gravel in order to clean it then return it back into the pond once cleaned.
It looks like there used to be a waterfall so I planned to remove the ivy from the lava rock and restore the waterfall. I thought we could finish this project in less than a month. Ha ha ha.
Here it is drained (June). There’s smelly black sludge, a layer of rotting leaves, and dried algae. I’ve started cutting back the ivy.
MYSTERY #1: WHAT IS THIS CRYPT?
We started emptying out the gravel, and boy, was I wrong about the depth of the pond! We kept digging and digging, and digging. I got pretty excited because it looked like maybe this was deep enough to be able to swim in!
However, at about 3 feet down, we hit 6 rusted “pipes” sticking up out of the gravel. I thought they were possibly the remains of 6 old fountain heads.
We removed a few more inches of gravel and discovered what seemed to be a concrete rectangle/wall covered in sheet of clear plastic.
It looked like a window screen had been placed over the top of the concrete rectangle, on top of the plastic. Under the screen was a rusted chain link fence. It’s crazy.
I’m going to pause here to see if anybody can guess what was under the plastic.
When I continue, should I comment below or start a new post?
