"Undoing" the mortared waterfall to lower or widen it

[sissy]

yeh one of these days spring will really get here :razz:

 

[Waterbug]

Removing some foam is relatively easy. Removing 10 tons of rocks glued together by 20 cans of foam...not too much fun. I would double or triple the cost estimate when done for $$$.

 

[sissy]

well I'm glad that was not me doing that waterbug I used it very sparingly .

 

[lachancesare]

Well, my friends....the waterfall "fix" was a bust.
Looked good....sounded good....but did not drain sufficiently...the upper pond backed up and I lost 1 inch of water in an hour. (the falls is still too high...I am going to try to run it without any stones at all and see if it still loses water....and work from there.)

Soooooo....back to the drawing board.....I will undo my latest handiwork starting this evening and see what can be done.
Ohhhh...what a frustrating experience!
Have pics of the process but not yet uploaded to a pc

 

[sissy]

I am dreading rebuilding mine and been rethinking it staring at it to try to figure the whole thing out .I over think it and take pics of the old and look at what is wrong and then rethink it again .Eventually I will come up with some thing and so will you .

 

[lachancesare]

Thanks for the empathy, Sissy....yes...we will get things figured out. I am going to try to run the waterfall without any stone and see if the I continue to lose water...if not...at least I know there is a solution.
Have a great day!

 

[Waterbug]

Look it as learning and it's a lot less frustrating.

For what it's worth here's how I've come to build streams and waterfalls...

Fig 1. Lay the liner.

Fig 2. Run the water to see what's what. Make adjustments as needed.

Fig 3. Water off and lay the rock in a bed of mortar to keep water above the rock. This is only in the water course, so I can still see the liner all the way around the entire edge except where it dumps into the pond.

Or just mortar, no rock, but you'd still want some ripples so you kind of make fake rocks out of the mortar. This is easiest. Later when water is flowing over the mortar you won't be able to tell the difference. No reason to even color the mortar as it will soon be covered with living organisms.

Fig 4. Run the water and see what's what. Adjust as needed. If you just did mortar in Fig 3 you can now mortar rocks around the edges of the flowing water. Mortar these rocks on top of the previous mortar bed. Start at the top (upstream) and work downstream. Because this is done with the water running, and because you've started at the top, you can see problems right away. Because there's liner at the edges you can adjust if needed. Note In this phase you only build out the edges in the water course, not the outside edges.

Fig 5. When you're happy you have no leaks you can lay rock for outside edges. Mortar here is optional. I like mortar because it keeps everything in place despite being walked on, etc. Note that I push the liner at the edges up, like a vertical wall type pucker, flush to the top of the water course rocks. Rocks on the outside edge lay against that pucker and a final cap rock covers that narrow vertical liner pucker.

The outside edge doesn't have to be rocks. It can be soil and or a combination of rocks and plant pockets.

In a perfect world the cap rock is cantilevered over the rocks in the water course, not touching. Rocks that touch can wick water. This cantilevering isn't always possible, but a single small rock under that cap rock (in red above on left) can still leave a gap (void) and stop wicking. Point is, many people like to "seal" stuff. But in most cases what they actually do is create a place for wicking. This whole "sealing" thing is almost always delusional, just wishful thinking.

Later on, if you develop a leak because of settling you only have to remove the cap rocks to see that narrow width of puckered liner to see if the problem is along an edge.

An important side effect is you're having to walk on the surround soil, liner, etc., which will expose loose soil that could later be a settling problem. You want a good foundation of compacted soil. In higher end ponds this is done with actual concrete foundations but in most cases, for small features using liner this expense is a bit much.

There's more detail type stuff, but that's the basic way I approach waterfalls and streams.

The deeper you make the water channel the easier the build, but the less natural the result in most cases.

And of course always a gap where liner overlaps.

Same type of gap done with the cantilevered cap rock on the sides of the stream/falls. Gap = good, sealed = bad.

 

[lachancesare]

Thanks for this great information.
Well, I "undid" the second waterfall yesterday and decided to see how it runs and if I keep losing water.
I am not losing anymore if it is rock free.
I am going to try to take your suggestion to use just a little mortor to cover the liner. There is already a riffle of sorts coming down the falls.
You have no idea how happy I was to run the pump all night and find that no water was lost!
Thanks again and I will try to get a couple pics posted.
have a great day!

 

[wispfox]

Thanks for the empathy, Sissy....yes...we will get things figured out. I am going to try to run the waterfall without any stone and see if the I continue to lose water...if not...at least I know there is a solution.
Have a great day!

... best idea ever. I tested software for 10 years, why did I not think of this?!

Oh right. Because I didn't want to have to remove the bottom rock. Which I have to do.

*keeps reading*

 

[lachancesare]

I wish to thank all the friends here, especially Waterbug, for your advice, empathy, and support!
I decided to just leave the stone off the bottom and it solved the problem. I am sitti.g in the chilly sunset, beside my creation, and life is good!

 

[lachancesare]

Happy Spring to all you pond lovers!....
I wanted to give an update on what ended up happening with my too high waterfall that was causing a loss of water by overfilling the upper pond because the waterfall would not allow sufficient flow to the lower pond.
I took waterbug's advice and just left the stones off the bottom of the falls.
It has had a season to mellow and now I am used to it, though I'd have loved to have a stone for the water to fall over.
Thanks to all for sharing your experiences!
here is the pond at the end of last season (the plants are not out enough to show off the pond at this point in spring).

 

[RobAmy]

Looks very nice

 

[Tula]

Looks beautiful!!!