Well, I’ve pretty much finished my water feature. I wanted to update this thread as I progressed but my home computer contracted some type of cyber venereal disease during the ponds construction and I had to reinstall the OS. It’s also fair season around here and since my wife and kid love going to them, I’ve been spending most of my weekends eating fried foods and drinking tiny little cups of overpriced beer. Outdoor festivals + special needs computer + pond building = little time for typing words on a forum.
All those things aside, I now have a dandy new hole that’s filled with water in my backyard and I’d like to share a few things that I learned while making it. As I said in my initial post, I knew nothing about what I was doing when I got myself into this and I would probably make lots of mistakes. I did. Now I’m going to share them with you in the hope that other’s do not follow in my footsteps.
1. DO NOT SKIMP ON YOUR LINER – I thought I was being so brilliant by ordering my liner from ebay. I got it for something like $50 and assumed that it was priced so low because the dealer was overstocked with them (he had about 20 others listed). Turns out it was inexpensive because it was 21 mil and not because God was smiling on my checking account’s balance. Since I couldn’t return the liner, I used it anyway. I’m all sorts of happy with the knowledge that a feather could puncture it and that the best case that I can hope for is that it’ll last me for maybe 2 or 3 years if I’m lucky.
2. KNOW YOUR TREES – Since I have trees all over my backyard I chose to put it under the two that I know shed the least amount of leaves. This is because I am a genius and wise beyond my years! I’m perceptive and keen and I notice stuff like that! What I didn’t notice, and didn’t find out until after I had dug the hole and partially filled the liner with water is that one of these stupid trees drops some sort of tiny little fruit at the beginning of every spring. I guess I never took note of this miracle of nature because they are so small that they become lost in the grass once they’ve fallen. With a half filled pond, they stand out quite strikingly and tend to crush men’s spirits.
3. WATERFALL FOAM WILL NEVER COME OFF YOUR HANDS – I can’t stress this enough! If you get even a drop of it on your fingers, wash them immediately! Otherwise you will be explaining to everyone all week long at work why your fingers and nails are icky and black.
Fortunately, I did manage to do some things right while endeavoring to create this incredible wonder of human achievement. Most of these had to do with saving money as I’m better at being a tightwad than I am at planning a pond, but some of them were just good decisions plain and simple! I’m shocked and amazed that I was able to pull any of this off so please allow me to pat myself on the back for just a second.
1. RIP RAP STONE WORKS GREAT – Everyone has a preconceived idea in their heads regarding how they want to do the stone design of their waterfall. My desire was to simply be able to build it for under $200. I’m very pleased that 2 tons of rip-rap along with a few pieces of slate (total cost $120) worked better than I ever expected. I’d assumed that buying the cheapest rock imaginable would result in a tacky Walmart looking pond but to my surprise it ended up looking most totally righteous.
2. GRAVEL IS A WATERFALLS BEST FRIEND – Okay, I fussed with foam and even tried mortar in an attempt get the water to flow over my rocks just the way that I wanted it to. With everything I did, nature cruelly laughed in my face. Not awesome. Then I said “Eh, I’m just going to start dumping gravel in there and see what happens.” To my surprise, two bagfuls created the effect I was looking for. Huzzah for gravel! I love it more than ice cream.
3. YOU CAN’T BUY TOO POWERFUL OF A PUMP – Okay, I suppose you could buy one that might possibly blow up your entire pond if you go all out but I say always buy more than what you think you’ll need. I figured that for what I was trying to do a 2,000 GPH would be sufficient. Fortunately I found a 4,000 GPH Cal-pump that someone was practically giving away so I bought that instead. I assumed that if it had too much flow, I could always put a valve on to decrease it. Much to my surprise, I apparently needed that extra 2,000 GPH power because the thing works perfectly just the way it is. If I would have gone with the 2,000 GPH pump that all my fancy mathematics had told me to buy, I’m sure that I would have been disappointed.
I hope this helps other’s who are looking to build a similar feature. I know that the people on this forum were of great assistance to me when I realized that I was too stupid to evaluate every pond related problem myself. All that’s really left to do now is to plant the landscaping around it, stick some fish in there and extend a portion of my deck out near the water’s edge so I can sit out there and chill all the time forever.
I'll post pictures tonight, after diner. Thanks guys!
