The Crypt

[NiftyFifty]

This is an old cement pond, located on the west side of my house in Salt Lake City. I believe the pond was built in the 50s or 60s. The main part of the pond is about 15’x15’ with a shallow inlet sort of thing coming out the south side of the pond (you can see it in the last photo). I’m just guessing on the size because I can’t find the actual measurements I took and it’s dark outside now.

I believed the pond to be about 3 and a half feet deep with maybe 6” to a foot of gravel at the bottom. I have only drained the water twice, but never cleaned the gravel. This summer I had someone helping me and he insisted on removing all of the gravel in order to clean it then return it back into the pond once cleaned.

It looks like there used to be a waterfall so I planned to remove the ivy from the lava rock and restore the waterfall. I thought we could finish this project in less than a month. Ha ha ha.

Here it is drained (June). There’s smelly black sludge, a layer of rotting leaves, and dried algae. I’ve started cutting back the ivy.

MYSTERY #1: WHAT IS THIS CRYPT?
We started emptying out the gravel, and boy, was I wrong about the depth of the pond! We kept digging and digging, and digging. I got pretty excited because it looked like maybe this was deep enough to be able to swim in!

However, at about 3 feet down, we hit 6 rusted “pipes” sticking up out of the gravel. I thought they were possibly the remains of 6 old fountain heads.

We removed a few more inches of gravel and discovered what seemed to be a concrete rectangle/wall covered in sheet of clear plastic.

It looked like a window screen had been placed over the top of the concrete rectangle, on top of the plastic. Under the screen was a rusted chain link fence. It’s crazy.

I’m going to pause here to see if anybody can guess what was under the plastic.

When I continue, should I comment below or start a new post?

 

[bagsmom]

What an interesting project you have there!!!! It will be fun to follow your progress!

 

[JRS]

Interesting. Please continue in the same post. Hard to follow otherwise.

 

[Mmathis]

An old bomb shelter? Just a wild guess. I don’t really think that’s what it was, but that’s what popped into my head.

Stay with this thread!

 

[j.w]

Maybe this:

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the forum!

Got our attention lol keep going!

 

[NiftyFifty]

An old bomb shelter? Just a wild guess. I don’t really think that’s what it was, but that’s what popped into my head.

Stay with this thread!

This was one of my thoughts too!

 

[NiftyFifty]

Maybe this: View attachment 165934

Right?!

 

[NiftyFifty]

Finally getting back to update this — let me know if I’ve posted this in the wrong place. Thanks!

I thought it looked like concrete housing for a six-headed fountain (albeit the fountain heads looked completely rusted over).

However, once the plastic sheet was removed, I was too scared to look inside as I was terrified of finding a body. I sent the dog to look.

It looks a little like a well, but we couldn’t see the bottom, as it was filled with a most foul black sludge
which we shoveled out

Drained and power washed

 

[addy1]

Great puppy

 

[NiftyFifty]

BUT…, what is it and what to do with it? It’s about 3 and a half feet wide and 6 feet long. The vault (the pit in the middle) dips about 3 feet below the bottom of the pond, and there is one hole in the center of each of the four walls. I think this allows water to be pulled down deeper than the bottom of the pond where you might walk).

I tried describing the thing to Google, but no luck. No luck with the reverse image search. I showed photos of it to the guy at Ace, and he said it looks like a yard well. The thing is that the vault doesn’t go down *that* deep, and you can see the bottom is solid cement.

A bomb shelter, a well, a tomb… all very good guesses. I sense this might have been some type of filtration system a long time ago, but the guy who sold me the house did a lot of awful quick “fixes” to hide flaws. I think he probably didn’t want to deal with actually cleaning the pond or go to the expense of getting it in working order. Cover the crypt with plastic, then to keep the weight of the gravel (that you will add on top of everything) from bursting through the plastic, throw in some leftover chain link fence from another project?

I’ve been working all summer to get this functioning — and here we are, already in October! Freezing temperatures just around the corner.

 

[NiftyFifty]

I’m rushing to see what I can finish before putting it to bed for the winter. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you have!

Filtration: The pump, is placed at the bottom of the vault, pulling water down from the pond into the crypt.

Water passes down through aluminum wire mesh wrapped with course filter floss. This layer fits over the top of the crypt walls, the 6 dowels keep the wire mesh and filter floss in place.

 

[NiftyFifty]

I was really on the fence about what to do with the crypt, especially the rusty metal dowels sticking up out of the concrete made me worry about somebody or some doggy getting injured. I considered finding someone to come saw them off, but had an idea that would serve 2 purposes; protecting would-be swimmers from the sharp metal and creating an island to increase biological filtration.

I fit pvc pipes very snugly over the 6 metal dowels. They are very tight around the dowels so they are stable and don’t jiggle. The pipes function kind of like table legs for a second sturdy aluminum wire mesh to rest on, just below the surface of the water.

Layer #2 gets wrapped in coconut fiber (or something similar). I will put some of the smaller volcanic rocks up there along with winter hardy bog plants.

I hope to fill the pond soon because the freeze/thaw cycle will surely crack the cement if I don’t get it filled before winter. I’ve been working on rearranging the large lava rock stones for the waterfall. It won’t be fabulous this year, but hopefully it functions. I’ll have to do some research on what to do with the waterfall during winter

It’s all really an experiment. Some of this will need to be replaced with more suitable materials next year and possibly better designs (such as creating a way to clean/change the filter floss and access the pump without having to dismantle the 2 platforms. I am also working on a finishing a little stream that will meander for about 20 feet before feeding into the waterfall.

I am really grateful for any suggestions and advice.
Also, does anybody have a good resource for

• Big roll of filter floss
• Big roll of coconut fiber (or something else that would be suitable for planting)
• Sodium bentonite

I’ve got some of these in my Amazon cart, but hoping to find less expensive options.

I’m going to try to snoop around this website to see if any of my questions have been answered elsewhere.

I’ll come back with updates and share some other strange things with you all. Thanks so much for such a fine friendly place to learn and be inspired.

 

[GBBUDD]

This is an old cement pond, located on the west side of my house in Salt Lake City. I believe the pond was built in the 50s or 60s. The main part of the pond is about 15’x15’ with a shallow inlet sort of thing coming out the south side of the pond (you can see it in the last photo). I’m just guessing on the size because I can’t find the actual measurements I took and it’s dark outside now.

I believed the pond to be about 3 and a half feet deep with maybe 6” to a foot of gravel at the bottom. I have only drained the water twice, but never cleaned the gravel. This summer I had someone helping me and he insisted on removing all of the gravel in order to clean it then return it back into the pond once cleaned.

It looks like there used to be a waterfall so I planned to remove the ivy from the lava rock and restore the waterfall. I thought we could finish this project in less than a month. Ha ha ha.

Here it is drained (June). There’s smelly black sludge, a layer of rotting leaves, and dried algae. I’ve started cutting back the ivy.
View attachment 165925

MYSTERY #1: WHAT IS THIS CRYPT?
We started emptying out the gravel, and boy, was I wrong about the depth of the pond! We kept digging and digging, and digging. I got pretty excited because it looked like maybe this was deep enough to be able to swim in!

However, at about 3 feet down, we hit 6 rusted “pipes” sticking up out of the gravel. I thought they were possibly the remains of 6 old fountain heads.

We removed a few more inches of gravel and discovered what seemed to be a concrete rectangle/wall covered in sheet of clear plastic.
View attachment 165927

It looked like a window screen had been placed over the top of the concrete rectangle, on top of the plastic. Under the screen was a rusted chain link fence. It’s crazy.
View attachment 165928

I’m going to pause here to see if anybody can guess what was under the plastic.

When I continue, should I comment below or start a new post?

View attachment 165929

looks like they used chain link fencing in the concrete as reinforcing wire/support?

 

[addy1]

Love your pvc pipe island idea, way neat.

The plants will love it also!