Construction of The Hawkins' Family Pond

[randythawkins]

I recently began construction of a pond and have posted a couple of separate threads with that progress. Since then I have noticed people will dedicate a single topic thread to their construction projects so I decided to do the same. Thus, I present the "Construction of The Hawkins' Family Pond" thread. {applause}

I will not repeat my previous posts but will, instead, just link to them. If you have not read them I suggest spending a few minutes glancing them over so that what is presented here will make more sense. Those threads are:

• Spent my Memorial Day weekend diggin' some dirt
• Spent the weekend building my SC enclosure

This past weekend was July 4th and I was looking forward to 4 days (Thur-Sun) of some focused pond work. Mother Nature had other plans however - rain. And boy did it rain. If I got 2 days worth of work done I would be surprised.

At this point I had the basic structure of my settlement chamber (SC) built with the tank sitting in as a test fit. I figured the next thing would be to dig some pipe trenches. I placed some pipe to get an idea of where I needed to dig...


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...and start digging. At the deepest point, right at the pond wall, I dug down about 2 1/2 ft. From prior rains the inside of the pond had a couple of inches of water in it. I dug through from the inside and was able to connect the trench which, as expected, flooded. I siphoned it down as much as I could.

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To dig the inside I stood on that bucket and used a post hold digger. It was a little scary but I managed to keep myself out of the muck.

The digging had played hard on my shoulders so I changed focus and spent some time wrapping the SC enclosure with some boards.

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Next was to cut an opening for the skimmer. After marking some lines I started cutting.

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It was a dirty nasty not-fun job which I had been dreading but it was over and that made me happy. The skimmer will sit inside that opening and, for it to do so properly, I needed to form a small pad to support the back half of it.

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This is just part of the pad. When I go to place the skimmer I will place some mortar on both this pad and the inside of the wall and set the skimmer on the wet mortar allowing it, the mortar, to form properly and shape itself to the bottom of the skimmer. More mortar along the sides will help to hold it in place but all that will come later.

Back to digging the trench...I placed the tank back in place, along with some of its plumbing, and determined where the DB line would need to run. I completed the DB run to the SC and then started to dig a trench for electrical until I got rained out on the 4th day.

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That is where things are now and more to come later.

Thanks.

 

[sissy]

how big is the pond and how deep .

 

[randythawkins]

how big is the pond and how deep .

It is about 9' across and 4' deep. I have calculated it to be around 1800 gal.

 

[addy1]

Nice work. Nicely documented too!

 

[bean6924]

looks great Randy. good to see your plan come to life.

 

[randythawkins]

Thanks addy1 and bean6924. I know that from the outside looking in that, with these pictures, it is kinda "eh, ok." but I am hoping that as time goes on and I add more then my vision will become more visible to everyone else. Not sure I will get to do anything this weekend. Hope at least to get the electrical line run into the house and some more of the plumbing trenches dug.

 

[randythawkins]

It has been several weeks since I posted anything which is due to multiple rain delays and, quite frankly, nothing exciting to post. But, I do now have some items of interest to get everyone caught up on. So...When we last left our caped crusader the trench for the electrical had been dug. I stubbed in the electrical run and started laying the drain for the settlement chamber (SC).


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In that last picture, I plan on putting a concrete 'floor' in the space under the SC and that green item covers what will be the floor drain for when rain and runoff water collects there. The open connection next to it is where the SC itself will connect and drain into.

That drain line will continue out the other side of the pond and around the corner so that I can drain a smaller turtle pond. Also, in this next picture, I have placed all electrical wires and a 2" pipe for the pump's output to feed the waterfall.


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At this point it was time to get back to cleaning up the inside of the pond. I am converting a raised flowerbed into a pond and, when the flowerbed's walls were constructed, they poured a concrete footing for the wall's concrete blocks. This footing left a lip of concrete which intruded into my pond hole. Removing that lip was hard, dirty, dusty, and just not fun. The method I found to work best was to cut vertical slots with my circular saw and knock the pieces off with an air chisel.

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The saw kicked up a huge cloud of dust each time I used it. What was neat, however, is how it exposed some spider webs one morning.

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Just for that lip removal it took about 3 full 8-hour days. :/

Once that was done, and I was through celebrating, I focused on getting the bottom drain in place.

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The bottom drain is held in place with some concrete. On the outside I have the gate valve in case I ever need to shut things down. The valve, however is 2' below ground level. I want to fill the trench in and also maintain access to the valve. I will accomplish this by taking 2 concrete form tubes, one inside the other, and fill the gap with concrete. Here is how I did it...

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Before I can put them in place I need to install the skimmer and run its pipes. I started by cleaning the area from dust and stray rocks. I then placed an 'X' of concrete and pressed the skimmer down, squishing the concrete, until it was level.

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This was an easy way to get a level and solid base to hold the skimmer. Once that concrete settled I came back with some mortar and started filling in the edges underneath and up the sides of the skimmer between the skimmer and the block wall. Going up the sides will be done in several passes as the weight of the mortar, pressing down on itself, prevents me from going too high without it squishing out.

Last couple of paring shots...I have the BD's stand pipe in. This will allow me to actually empty the BD line, with the prior-mentioned gate valve closed, if I ever need to.

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The plumbing for the skimmer will be placed directly behind the skimmer with a UV light. Once complete this entire area will be boxed in with wood which will hide all this wonderful work effort. More on this to come...

Thanks,
Randy

 

[addy1]

Way to go!

 

[Nepen]

wow, I want to see the end result!

 

[randythawkins]

wow, I want to see the end result!

Me too!

 

[randythawkins]

Another weekend of work and another update to this thread...

Last entry I showed how I made the form for the gate valve sleeve. Now it goes in place and filled with concrete...

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Next was to work on the skimmer's plumbing. I drilled a hole and installed a 2" uniseal.

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Using a special device I made I installed a 5" piece of pipe through the uniseal.

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Anyone who has tried to push a pipe through a uniseal knows the effort and struggle which it will entail. This was the 2nd time I used the device and the first time for it to work. I will not distract from this entry by going into details here but, however, I will post another comment on this thread which focuses on device.

I will have a UV light filtering the water as it leaves the skimmer. I built this which will allow use or bypass of the UV light. I still have to attach the UV connection components and the UV itself which I will do later.


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Then I completed the run to the settlement chamber.

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Time to fill in the trench.

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This was a milestone for me as digging that trench was one of the first things I did and it has been many months since then.


Next up is pouring the concrete floor under the settlement chamber. I removed the tank and snapped a few pics and got ready to "get busy" with it when I quickly realized I really did not have a real plan yet.

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So, I sat and thought for awhile and started to form a plan but nothing worth putting to labor just yet. I will spend this week finalizing it with hopes of "getting busy" with it first thing next weekend.

 

[randythawkins]

How I get the pipes through my uniseals...

As I mentioned in my last posting I made a device to help get the pipe through an installed uniseal. Anyone who has tried this free-handed knows how much it results in the need to go to church the next day. It is almost impossible to push the pipe through even with tapered ends and some type of lube. The device created here pulls the pipe through with constant even pressure and is no more difficult than turning a wrench.

First I started with 2 pieces of MDF. The ones I had available were about 3" and 4" square.

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With some hole saws, on one of the boards, I drilled a slot for a 3" pvc pipe and on the other side one for an 2" pvc pipe. These slots hold the pipe and the square board together so that when pressure is applied they will not slip apart.

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A threaded rod about 2' long with a washer and wing nut...

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...goes through the center hole.

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That board is used for the outside and supports the pvc pipe. The other board is for the inside and is used in a similar method. First I found a scrap piece of air duct pipe. It is about 3" in diameter and quite thin but when used properly, with pressure applied straight on, it functions as a column and is quite effective. Using the same hole 3" hole saw I drilled a support grove for the duct pipe.

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The other end of the threaded rod is fed through the duct, its board and backed with a washer and nut.


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The idea is that, when everything is in place, this nut is turned by a wrench and pulls the pipe through.

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The reasons why I chose this particular duct pipe are (1) it provides a larger surface area against the container being piped which creates more stability from leaning and (2) a 3" pvc pipe can fit inside of it:


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The first time I tried my device was on the 3" bottom drain input to my settlement chamber. For this instance it failed to work as the duct pipe is the same size as the uniseal's hole and instead of the duct resting on the inside of the tank it rested on the uniseal, straddling the hole, and I wound up pulling the uniseal through the hole. For this particular instance I wound installing the pipe the old fashion way (and going to church the next day). For the sake of this posting I will show the pictures of setting everything up but keep in mind it failed - I would have to make another similar device with a larger duct pipe.

On the inside of the container place the duct pipe and its board along with the nut end and threaded rod:

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If you look closely you can see where the duct pipe would rest on the uniseal instead of on the tank's inside wall. On the outside where the threaded rod should be sticking out, slide the pipe over the threaded rod, slide the outside board on along with its wing nut:

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At this point the entire contraption will flop around and that is OK. Tighten the wing nut and, while doing so, align both pipes into the board slots and be sure everything is straight with the pipe squarely aligned with the uniseal:

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It is very important that the duct be flat against the inside surface and the pipe be straight with the uniseal. As I mentioned those pictures above are of my 3" pipe attempt. Now I will shift gears and use pictures of my 2" pipe installation into the skimmer which I did this past weekend. Here is the outside with everything in place:

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And here is the inside:

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At this point, while using pliers to keep the threaded rod from turning, I would turn the inside nut 1 revolution with the wrench. After that turn I would check the pvc pipe as sometimes it would get a little cock-eyed where it meets the uniseal. If it was not straight I would just push it back straight and then turn the nut again. I kept doing this until the nut had turned down about 1.5" of the threaded rod. At that point I loosened everything up and saw that the pvc pipe had indeed pulled through the uniseal and the end of it was on the inside. I chose to manually twist it through the rest of the way but continued use of the device would have been just fine.

And that is what worked for me. I hope others find it helpful.

Thanks,
Randy

 

[randythawkins]

This past weekend I had 2 full non-interrupted no-rain days (WOO HOO!!!). I got the SC's concrete 'floor' poured.

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Also got to mortar the rocks back on top of the pond's wall.

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Still have some gaps to fill between the stones. The final hours were spent connecting some plumbing lines.


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Still got more to do but I got done sure gives me a good feeling of accomplishment.

 

[randythawkins]

Still got more to do but *what* I got done sure gives me a good feeling of accomplishment.

 

[addy1]

Still got more to do but *what* I got done sure gives me a good feeling of accomplishment.

it sure does!