Mmathis
TurtleMommy
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- Apr 28, 2011
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We are about at the point of building the waterfall, but not sure Hubby & I are on the same page. Let me see if I can describe what we have now, and what we want to do with it. Then, you guys can critique and make suggestions.
Whatever we end up doing, going to have to practice restraint and keep it in proportion to our yard & pond.
We have a nice pile of clay-dirt, oh, roughly 3-4 feet high. Of course, as dirt piles do, it tapers off in height all around, but is roughly 10 feet long [side-to-side] and 5 feet deep [front-to-back]. Because of the shape we want for the waterfall, going to have to move some of the clay-dirt. Have a 100 gal Rubbermaid filter and want that to go behind and flow into the pond. There isn't enough room [back-to-front] to simply place the SKIPPY in back, so was thinking about digging out a large niche for it and building a CMU retaining wall [3-sided?] into the dirt. The SKIPPY would have a space large enough to hold it and for us to get to it for any maintainence. Then we would "sculpt" the rest of the clay-dirt around for the waterfall.
SKIPPY has a bottom drain, so it will need to be elevated enough to clear that. So however tall SKIPPY ends up being is how we'll decide on the waterfall height, and go from there.
Also, our design might have us partially cutting off natural water flow. Should we install something like a French drain underneath? I'm afraid rain water will be impeded and if it backs up in this spot, it will drain under the liner [we already know that this is the "weepy" spot].
We don't really have a definite design plan for the waterfall. Right now, it's a matter of what prep-work to do as far as moving dirt, deciding WHERE to put dirt, deciding how much space we'll need, making a place for SKIPPY, etc. Hubby wants to move as little dirt as possible, and I'm all for that, believe me! But mostly we aren't agreeing on how to go about doing the CMU SKIPPY-cubby, and about providing drainage underneath where we might extend part of the waterfall [these are 2 separate issues, BTW].
Whatever we end up doing, going to have to practice restraint and keep it in proportion to our yard & pond.
We have a nice pile of clay-dirt, oh, roughly 3-4 feet high. Of course, as dirt piles do, it tapers off in height all around, but is roughly 10 feet long [side-to-side] and 5 feet deep [front-to-back]. Because of the shape we want for the waterfall, going to have to move some of the clay-dirt. Have a 100 gal Rubbermaid filter and want that to go behind and flow into the pond. There isn't enough room [back-to-front] to simply place the SKIPPY in back, so was thinking about digging out a large niche for it and building a CMU retaining wall [3-sided?] into the dirt. The SKIPPY would have a space large enough to hold it and for us to get to it for any maintainence. Then we would "sculpt" the rest of the clay-dirt around for the waterfall.
SKIPPY has a bottom drain, so it will need to be elevated enough to clear that. So however tall SKIPPY ends up being is how we'll decide on the waterfall height, and go from there.
Also, our design might have us partially cutting off natural water flow. Should we install something like a French drain underneath? I'm afraid rain water will be impeded and if it backs up in this spot, it will drain under the liner [we already know that this is the "weepy" spot].
We don't really have a definite design plan for the waterfall. Right now, it's a matter of what prep-work to do as far as moving dirt, deciding WHERE to put dirt, deciding how much space we'll need, making a place for SKIPPY, etc. Hubby wants to move as little dirt as possible, and I'm all for that, believe me! But mostly we aren't agreeing on how to go about doing the CMU SKIPPY-cubby, and about providing drainage underneath where we might extend part of the waterfall [these are 2 separate issues, BTW].
