Restarting the Water Feature and Finishing the Foot Path

In this post last year I talked about how I decided to use Aquascape's Microskimmer box to house the submergible pump. I also explained that the pond was too shallow (about 11" deep) to have the box sit in the pond itself, so I planned to create a permanent place for it just off the edge of the south side of the pond. Here is how the pond looked last summer shortly after the Microskimmer was in place:


So before restarting the water feature this year I wanted to get the MicroSkimmer box in place. The first step was to dig a hole for the skimmer box and level it at the right depth. My main concern was that digging close to the mortar walls of the water feature might weaken them or even make them break, so I starte about a foot away. This process was not hard, just a lot of trial and error to get the box at the right depth and level in both directions.

The MicroSkimmer box -- as with everything from Aquascape -- is pricey but very well designed. You need to attach the pond liner to it using their procedures. I couldn't readily find the 60 mil rubber I'd used for the main pond, but I found decent quality 40 mil material and folded it over -- effectively doubling the lining to 80 mil.

That was the easy part. The next part was to cut out enough of the mortar wall so that I could create a "mini-canyon" to connect the pond to the skimmer box. I found a concrete-cutting blade for the circular saw at Lowe's -- less than $3 per blade -- so took two and tried it out. I was cautious at first to not dig too deep for fear of cutting the underlying rubber lining, but as it turned out the concrete blade cuts concrete but didn't bother the rubber. Here is how it looked after that step:


You can see the cutout in the pond wall with the skimmer box in place behind it. There is a pile of rubber lining in front of the skimmer box because the lining has already been attached to the box so it has to sit there. The rubber lining on the pond had held up very well but was, of course, dirty and needed cleaning with mineral spirits -- which I had left over from the pond project last summer.

The next step was to dig the canyon to connect the skimmer box. Easy enough, but once done I realized the walls were too step to expect that they would stay in place by themselves, even with mortar on them. So I used left-over pressure-treated (p.t.) fir and two leftover metal stakes to give the walls some strength. This picture is after the first one was in place:


You can see the top of the p.t. fir along the "mini-canyon" wall that is not covered by the rubber lining. This block of p.t. fir doesn't need to cover the whole gap -- just enough of it to give the wall strength.

The next step was to cut the rubber linings (both the original and the new ones) so they overlapped nicely but not too much (about 3") and splice them. Cutting was easy with a box knife (new blade). But splicing liners is always a tricky business due to the potential of leaks. I started out intending to use some of the lining tape left over from the project last summer, but decided that wouldn't work the because the liners did not meet up nice and evenly -- in fact the two liners were coming at very different angles and there would have to be folds and compromises at the splice.

So, back to the home supply store. After looking at various adhesives intended for repairing holes in pools and on boats under the water line, I found something in the caulk section intended for showers with a 1 hour dry time. Reading the label they pointed out that if a product said "can clean up with water" then it isn't really water proof -- and they claimed their's was water proof. So I bought two caulk-gun-sized tubes to try it out.

I used one whole tube of the stuff between the original pool liner and the first of the new liners (remember I was doubling two 40 mil liners for this new section). It squished down nicely and did indeed appear promising for covering all gaps. I used a second whole tube between the first and the second of the new liners and again squished together nicely.

Now my theory was, and is, that if the caulking material is truly waterproof the splice will work because the weight of the mortar will hold the liners close together. I'll spoil the ending of the story and tell you right now that it did work - I tested the pond later for two days without running the waterfall and the water level stayed even the whole time, indicating no leak. Of course, we'd had similar results last summer with the splices using tape and some Polyseamseal, but this splice was more challenging.

Next step was to mix and stain some mortar, as we'd done last year, and add rocks for strength and decoration. Here is oldest daughter Paige adding the rocks (something she loves to do):


In the end, but before water was added, the skimmer box connection looked like this:


But would it work? Well we had to wait some time for everything to dry. In the meantime, there were other projects to do. One was to clean the water feature, washing out the internals of the skimmer box and the Biofalls box at the top of the water fall. We also needed to very carefully rake up pine needles and debris from the stream and pond. I'm happy to say that all four kids helped with some of this. Here is a picture of Laura helping rake the pond:


AND, it was long past time for me to put down the "red breeze" clay-rock mixture on the paths adjacent to the footbridge. Buying in bulk, and using my trailer, the whole purchase was only $11.30. Here is a picture of the north end of the bridge with the red clay-rock in place:


The work to do this was mindlessly simple (remember that weed-blocking fabric had been put in underneath the red-clay last year) but labor-intensive. Be sure to tamp-water-tamp a few times to get it solid. We've been very pleased with the appearance and utility of this. The kids are even now using the bridge for riding bikes over.

The next day was the great re-restarting of the water feature. Unlike last year this did not generate a huge amount of excitement. Kids checked in and looked, but didn't stay long as they'd seen this before. I was, however, very interested in if the skimmer box would work as expected. The answer: Yes, it did. This picture shows the skimmer box with the top open after I'd filled the pond just over the maximum point and the water was starting to run out the overlow pipe in the back:


Here is a view of the skimmer box within the context of the pond:


At that point the skimmer/pump had yet to remove all the water debris, but by later that day the water was as clear as glass.

Since then we have added fish and a few water plants. I've started planning the remaining footpaths and the exact location of the train tracks. I've also started installing raised planters. None of those things are visible in this photo, taken May 31st, of how the front yard looked on that day:


There still is a lot of work to do, but contrast this to last year on June 23rd:


So, we're happy with all that has been done in the last year, and looking forward to some real refinement and -- yes -- trains! this year.