CW's Back Yard Water Garden Begins!

[GBBUDD]

Let’s see Barney the Dino, Barney fife, ….nope …..but that is the limit of my Barney knowledge (ethnic smilie)

cw just do some third world engineering tie bamboo poles to the bucket to turn it into a Extend-a-hoe, then boom you can reach the other side….or is it boom dropping rocks and just generally breaking stuff…..

Kinda like the excavator on the sky scraper roof i LIKE IT

 

[GBBUDD]

Planning stages are over haven't you watched enough aquascape videos and heard them say over and over you start with a basic plan and then as you build it it evolves and grows with the rock with the topo and creativity starts to take over.

 

[GBBUDD]

CW for that matter while your at the bottom of the cistern you could always do the same to the other side of the cistern and cross the cistern. and you can build the pond from both sides and once the pond is all rocked and stoned you work your way out it may be a bit tough to back fill the second ramp creating a vertical wall with the spoils is not a rookie task so just leave a pile of soil so when you build the cistern you can use the spoils you leave to back fill against the cistern. This can work and fairly easily but you need to start knowing what your machine can do yes it may sound like a lot more work but some times the best plan is so destroy and make an area easy to access and rebuild on the way off the project.

 

[GBBUDD]

looking at your video are you better off digging down the 2 feet infilling the cistern and rock the pond then once your done dig out the cistern ?

 

[combatwombat]

Toddler is working on her fountain building skills:

Meanwhile, I'm finally back from out of town, but getting my butt kicked catching up on work and other projects. Barney has been sitting in my yard for about 3 weeks now and I think I've used him for less than an hour. Might get a little time in the seat this afternoon, though.

 

[combatwombat]

Gave Barney a little massage this morning, he let out a big groan, and then got right to work.

I was able to inch him up against the fence without removing any bamboo, which allowed me to dig out 2/3 of the pit even though he has a short arm, like dinosaurs do:

For the remaining 1/3, I just hopped down in the hole with a shovel, broke up the soft dirt, and pitched it all to the corner where Barney could scoop it out. No more more walking a shovelful of dirt to the edge of the pit and throwing it out over my head.

One cool feature Barney has that I haven't seen on any other excavators around here—an articulating arm:

This proved really handy for digging in corners and at weird angles.

Once I got down to final grade, I raked it mostly flat and did one more test fit of the crates;

I'll now have a foot of material over the crates, which should spread the load substantially.

Finally, there are just no good construction videos or tutorials for negative edge ponds. John Adams of Modern Design Aquascaping has a great whiteboard tutorial, but nothing "in the field" where you can see how things actually go together.

There are some decent walkthroughs for buried rainwater storage, which is very similar, but none that show the interface between pond and cistern, which is key.

One of the primary design principles for a pond is that you need enough empty space in your cistern to capture all your water in motion when the pumps are shut down. That means that you'd expect to see no standing water above the gravel/landscaping over your cistern. But when I look at some of the builds that feature negative edges, they almost always have a pool of water exposed at the surface.

That would lead me to believe these builds either don't save space for water in motion (potential for flood/water-loss when pumps shut off) or they implement a bib liner above the cistern to allow pooling before spilling into the semi-full cistern below.

I plan to go the bib-liner route. And because there are no good tutorials for how to do this with in-the-field shots, I plan to fully document each step of my cistern build so that at least something exists on the internet for others to reference. I shot about 15 min. of boring video today, but no time to edit right now, so will have to wait.

Of course, I've never built one before, so I'll probably do it all wrong, but maybe it'll inspire someone who knows better than me to make a better resource.

 

[brokensword]

Gave Barney a little massage this morning, he let out a big groan, and then got right to work.

I was able to inch him up against the fence without removing any bamboo, which allowed me to dig out 2/3 of the pit even though he has a short arm, like dinosaurs do:

View attachment 142213

For the remaining 1/3, I just hopped down in the hole with a shovel, broke up the soft dirt, and pitched it all to the corner where Barney could scoop it out. No more more walking a shovelful of dirt to the edge of the pit and throwing it out over my head.

One cool feature Barney has that I haven't seen on any other excavators around here—an articulating arm:

View attachment 142214

This proved really handy for digging in corners and at weird angles.

Once I got down to final grade, I raked it mostly flat and did one more test fit of the crates;

View attachment 142215

I'll now have a foot of material over the crates, which should spread the load substantially.

Finally, there are just no good construction videos or tutorials for negative edge ponds. John Adams of Modern Design Aquascaping has a great whiteboard tutorial, but nothing "in the field" where you can see how things actually go together.

There are some decent walkthroughs for buried rainwater storage, which is very similar, but none that show the interface between pond and cistern, which is key.

One of the primary design principles for a pond is that you need enough empty space in your cistern to capture all your water in motion when the pumps are shut down. That means that you'd expect to see no standing water above the gravel/landscaping over your cistern. But when I look at some of the builds that feature negative edges, they almost always have a pool of water exposed at the surface.

That would lead me to believe these builds either don't save space for water in motion (potential for flood/water-loss when pumps shut off) or they implement a bib liner above the cistern to allow pooling before spilling into the semi-full cistern below.

I plan to go the bib-liner route. And because there are no good tutorials for how to do this with in-the-field shots, I plan to fully document each step of my cistern build so that at least something exists on the internet for others to reference. I shot about 15 min. of boring video today, but no time to edit right now, so will have to wait.

Of course, I've never built one before, so I'll probably do it all wrong, but maybe it'll inspire someone who knows better than me to make a better resource.

good on you, CW: no doubt filling a needed learning moment for future ponders to come. Annnnnd, if it all works out, we'll nominate your 'how to build a negative edge the right way' to be sticked by our illustrious Queen Bee, @addy1 !

Btw, glad to see you got Barney OUT of the hole before you began digging deeper. When I first saw your pic, btw, I had this strange urge to go look up a Flintstone version, just to see the similarity...and voila! here ya go!

(coincidence? I think not!)

 

[GBBUDD]

Take your liner and bring it up to the height of your negative edge over flow. Do a detail like addy always draws with the shelf and the liner being hid by the edging rock. but the key is to not have an end but to have the liner come up fold under and run under the overflow rock to where you have the waterfall drop and the cistern liner comes up under that.

 

[GBBUDD]

FOR THOSE WHO GIVE AN EXCAVATOR A TRY WHEN YOU GET CLOSE TO THE EDGE AND YOU SEE WHAT LOOKS LIKE A CRACK AS IT DOES UNDER BARNEY ALONG THE EDGE . THIS IS A SIGN OF POTENTIAL COLAPSE IT SOUNDS LIKE CW. DIDN'T HAVE ANY PROBLEM BUT WHEN YOU SEE A CRACK IN THE SOIL SUCH AS IS UNDER BARNEY THAT IS A HUGE SIGN THAT YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO.

 

[combatwombat]

@GBBUDD: Yes, definitely. I checked on that after placing the machine. The camera angle might be a bit funny—the tracks are about 18" from the edge and the hole is only about 3' deep at that point. I figured that would mean a collapse would have to be greater than 50% grade to affect the machine, and that didn't seem likely, so felt safe to continue.

 

[combatwombat]

@brokensword: That's hilarious. Someone pull the bird whistle!

 

[brokensword]

FOR THOSE WHO GIVE AN EXCAVATOR A TRY WHEN YOU GET CLOSE TO THE EDGE AND YOU SEE WHAT LOOKS LIKE A CRACK AS IT DOES UNDER BARNEY ALONG THE EDGE . THIS IS A SIGN OF POTENTIAL COLAPSE IT SOUNDS LIKE CW. DIDN'T HAVE ANY PROBLEM BUT WHEN YOU SEE A CRACK IN THE SOIL SUCH AS IS UNDER BARNEY THAT IS A HUGE SIGN THAT YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO.View attachment 142222

I dunno, @GBBUDD , are you sure CW isn't trapped down in the hole? I know he prob took the pic before it happened, but he's always got the vid going, so might be filming his way out even as we speak! Probably even sending an update as he digs himself out...whoa! and there it is!

 

[brokensword]

@brokensword: That's hilarious. Someone pull the bird whistle!

ya know, I may poke fun atcha but I also envy what you're doing. Sure would have been nice to have a Barney on my expansion! Thought about renting one, but when my son volunteered to help, well, didn't want to look like a wuss in front of him...not that YOU'RE wussing out, uh uh, no, not what I'm saying, not even close...(insert nefarious snickering!)

 

[GBBUDD]

I know cw is new to the operation but has been around construction and like everyone else people look at other builds and what they ran into . i was just pointing out that to a rookie not so much cw but someone looking at his build a year from now who might say well he had the same crack and ignore it

 

[brokensword]

I know cw is new to the operation but has been around construction and like everyone else people look at other builds and what they ran into . i was just pointing out that to a rookie not so much cw but someone looking at his build a year from now who might say well he had the same crack and ignore it

you crack me up, GB! Oh, wait; am I allowed puns if I don't use any smilies or acros? Shizzle; I broke one of dem rules already...sigh.