Mi pawnd rebild tew

[addy1]

fantastic glad to hear that!

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well I received the second shipment of pumps today. They were packaged exactly the same way, with only a couple thin pieces of styrofoam holding the pump in position. One pump arrived with the impeller housing again popped away from the motor, and broken pieces inside the cage. The second pump arrived without any shrinkwrap, missing the 1.5" hose connector, and having the same broken piece inside as the rest, but the broken piece was not inside the box.

It seems that the standoff that is broken in all of them (sitting directly behind the motor) does not actually hold it in position while running, but I could be wrong. Between four broken up pumps, I could piece together two working units (except for the broken standoff). I went ahead and threw one in my pond to see how the motor works, and am pleased that it seems to push a lot more water than my old brand of pump (plus these are rated to use 1/3 the wattage), so it seems that the pump itself is good quality, even if they don't package them properly for shipping.

So my question to everyone - what should I do now? These are Laguna Max-flo 2900 pumps, which was given a good rating in various threads on this forum. I *could* make two usable pumps out of all this mess, or I could call the reseller up on Monday and ask what is going on with these (and I do have the time to do this still). Is the general consensus still in agreement that these are a good quality pump? Has anyone else used this particular pump, and also seen such crappy packaging? This is certainly not what I would expect from a company that ships out product via mail-order, and as I think the pumps would have a much better change of arriving intact if they simply put some packing cardboard inside the cage to prevent the pump from coming loose and destroying everything inside the cage.

I'm just not sure where to go from here, and getting frustrated with something that should be a very simple matter.

 

[DrDave]

I would have photographed everything "as opened", too late now if you didn't. Then send it to the shipper/seller. This will not get corrected unless they know it is a continuing problem.

Harbor Freight used to sell a knock off of the Lagunas, mine are 3200GPH. I have 2 of them, both running continuously for 2 and 3 years with no problems. They were $89 each on sale. They do draw a little more current than the equivalent Laguna so after a few years, the savings is a wash. Unfortunaltey, this one was discontinued and I have not looked to see what they replaced it with. I like that HF offers a 3 year unconditional replacement warrantee for 10% of the selling price.

Thier packaging was outstanding and could be misshandled and still survive the abuse in shipping.

I know that there are lot of Laguna pump users here, and they are outstanding pumps, however there are others that will work.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

The thing is there's no obvious damage as soon as you open the box... It's when I take the pump out that I start to see things. Some of the hold-down clips are broken, and when I open up the pump cage, then I see the real damage.

This store seemed real good about getting replacements shipped out right away, so I guess I'll call them again tomorrow and see what can be done. They also offer their own 1-year warranty extension, beyond Laguna's 3-year warranty, so I thought they might be a good choice to purchase from, but we'll see.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

So I decided to fire up one of the pumps and see if they actually work... I have to say, I'm very impressed with the output! With my 55-gal barrel sitting on the ground, the new pump is pushing to a head-height 2' higher than my original pump in the old filter. I connected the new pump to the filter using 1.5" pool hose, and wow what an output!

For comparison, I diverted one of the two outlets from the 55-gal filter to the upper pond, and left the other outlet flowing into the lower pond (which is where the pump is located). Even with only half of the output from the pump, the upper pond still flooded because it couldn't drain into the lower pond fast enough! And to think, I have TWO of these pumps to circulate the new pond :lol:

 

[addy1]

Great glad they will work for you, sounds like you will have great circulation

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Finally received the new pump cages today. They arrived intact and with all their bits in the right places. Tomorrow I'll pull apart the broken pumps and put together all the good pieces.

I also checked out a nearby landscaper for suitable slate to use for my waterfall. I found a local sandstone that looks great, but it runs $250 per ton!!! (And I figure I need about 1/2 ton) Gonna have to shop around a bit and see if anyone else has a better price, that's just a bit more than I was hoping to spend.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

This weather is crazy! We reached almost 70 degrees today and there's not a bit of frost in the ground. Waste not, want not - I've been dying to start digging, so I used a rope to lay out an outline for my lower pond and got it marked out. I figure once I get my depth dug out, I'll go back and dig a 3" shelf around the edge for the first layer of river rocks that will hide the liner edge.

The water area will come out to approximately 4 feet square, and will drop quickly from 6" at the mouth of the river, down to 24" for the pump holes. The afternoon sun makes it really hard to get good pictures, but I'll get more as I go. It's not too deep yet, so I drew the actual outline of the pond (pond shape subject to change!).

The board represents where I will be placing a large piece of red slate. The bricks will be moved, then stacked across the slate, with smaller pieces of slate tying the two structures together. With any luck, the wild strawberries will love the extra water, and completely cover everything in the next couple years...

 

[sissy]

then you are using the top where the wall block are as an upper pond or filter .happy digging

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Nope, the part within the brick wall will remain as an herb garden. Below is another picture I took, where you can see I roughly painted how the river will flow across the yard. The entire area where the two little ponds are sitting now are going to be dug out into one large pear-shaped pond. The two 55-gal filters will be back against the fence, with a sandstone waterfall built between them, flowing into the big pond. Then the end of the large pond that flows out into the river will be shallow and wide, sort of bog-like and heavily planted, but the water flow may be too fast for any effective filtration (can't hurt to try though!).

 

[addy1]

I also checked out a nearby landscaper for suitable slate to use for my waterfall. I found a local sandstone that looks great, but it runs $250 per ton!!! (And I figure I need about 1/2 ton) Gonna have to shop around a bit and see if anyone else has a better price, that's just a bit more than I was hoping to spend.

Are you saying you are going to use the sandstone in your waterfall? i.e. it will get wet? I used sandstone for my pond in arizona, just on the stream edges and one bridge. One area where the water spray hit the sand stone all of the time, the sand stone disintegrated.

So if it is where it is going to be wet, I would recommend a different rock for your waterfall.

You layout looks great. Keep us updated.

 

[sissy]

Oh well we can see he has become addicted to ponds and is lost forever .As addy says would be great to see it as you build it .I used slate for mine but my neighbor got some soap stone and it is really pretty .Her nephew installs granite and stone counter tops and saves her all the pieces left over .I keep telling her I'm going to steal some .

 

[Shdwdrgn]

@addy: This sandstone was actually recommended by one of the local places. It's called "Colorado Buff" and he said its the second hardest sandstone in the world, so there was no problem with using it to build the waterfall where it will be in a continuous flow. I'd never heard of that either, but this hobby teaches us all kinds of new stuff! Here's what the sandstone looks like...

I've been lost to projects for decades. I like building things, and I've wanted to do a larger pond for a long time. I will definitely be taking construction pics, that was the point of starting this thread. The weather is supposed to be in the 60's for the next week, hopefully I can get dug through those roots soon.

 

[sissy]

That is a pretty stone and may be what I have except I found it on my property here in VA I will have take a close up of what I have .If it's the same I used it on my other waterfall and just incorporated into my new waterfall .I cut it with a diamond blade on my circular saw .I tried scoring it to break it but the cuts where not what I wanted them to look like

 

[sissy]

some where thicker and I just took a chisel and went around the rock and then sliced it or split it in half and then cut some that where close to the size I wanted .I was digging footings when I found them