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Thread: New pond build
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29-10-2018, 09:09 PM #41
The weather's certainly not been the best I'm fine with the manual work as it keeps me warm, it's the fiddly little things that I'm going to struggle with The short days don't help either. I came home early this evening to wrap the lintels in EPDM... it was dark within a few minutes so I had to do it by torch. Hope it doesn't look too crap in the daylight.
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07-11-2018, 10:19 PM #42
The liner arrived yesterday from FLP. Started to fit it this evening and the heavens opened. The way it's raining it'll be full by the morning
Seems like a great fit, although the depth in one corner's not quite right so I'll need to dig out a little extra in that area. Entirely my fault, not FLP's, and sods law it's the one corner where a crease will be noticeable. I'm hoping for some clear weather tomorrow afternoon to get that sorted, the liner fitted and cut to fit around the two lintels. I've got some Firestone FormFlash arriving tomorrow to seal around the lintels rather than faffing around with adhesive. Never used it before, but it looks ideal for the job.
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08-11-2018, 01:21 AM #43
Looking good fatgus, good man for sharing all your hard work.
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08-11-2018, 07:19 PM #44
Cheers Bazza
Came home early and finished off fitting the liner, returns and drains... thankfully the rain held off.
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Naturally, the FormFlash didn't arrive... still, if the weather's OK on the weekend I can get that sorted.
One corner of the liner still isn't sitting right (top left in the photo). Might need to do some modification to eliminate any creases. If I don't do it I'll be kicking myself every time I look at that corner, which is basically every time I walk out onto the patio .
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09-11-2018, 07:00 AM #45
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10-11-2018, 07:48 PM #46
Nice break in the rain this afternoon, so had the chance do a little more work. Fixed the liner to the blocks... only using MSP but it'll stop the wind blowing it into the pond until I finish off the tiling.
The FormFlash arrived yesterday, so I've sealed the joints between the lintels and the liner. The lintels will be mostly submerged, so they're wrapped in epdm. I've never used FormFlash before but I'm really impressed... time will tell, but it's hard to see it leaking.
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The forecast doesn't look great for the next couple of days so with that and other commitments I'm going to struggle to get much done before Thursday/Friday, which is a bit gutting. Next step is to build up walls on two sides, fit the waterfall and render the pond-side faces. A couple of days work if I can find the time
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11-11-2018, 06:52 PM #47
Made a mix of mortar to start the walls, then realised I should probably check my levels so the part tiles that will sit on top of the liner flange and under the wall will be at the correct height. Kind of difficult to explain... the pic of old pond below shows what I mean... the tiles sticking out of the wall under the waterfall, just above the water.
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So... I started to fit and level the tiles around the edge of the pond... made reasonable progress until I realised it was too dark to see the bubble on the level. I couldn't be bothered to set up the site light, so called it a night, came inside and cleaned myself up. Then realised I still had a mixer full of mortar. Back outside, emptied the mixer and slung the mortar into the skip. Took some photos and noticed that there's one lintel I'd never mortared in place (you can just see it on the right side of the second pic below). Back to the skip to recover a couple of trowels of mortar...
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When I look at these photos I realise what a godawful mess I've made of the garden A job for the spring, I think...
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11-11-2018, 10:12 PM #48
Hi Gus,
looks like it’s coning together nicely. Can I ask how your tiles are laid, they look like there is a mounting on each corner and they are suspended? Is that so? Can I ask what that system is called and the reasons for choosing it?
Cheers
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12-11-2018, 08:12 AM #49
You're absolutely right... they use a pedestal system. There are quite a few, but I chose Jouplast becase they're 'self levelling', there's a good range of heights and they're one of the less expensive. I bought most of them direct from France, but they're also available in the UK. They were roughly a fiver each.
The main reason was convenience.... we had an existing patio that was pretty level and very sturdy but wanted to extend it into the garden and around behind our main bedroom (part of our extension... it's a bungalow). The total area was over 60m2. We also wanted to raise the patio to reduce the size of the step down from the house (we put a linear drain between patio and the building to avoid the need for the 150mm minimum stipulated by building regs). If we'd gone for a solid base, it would have needed somewhere in the region of 12m3 of hardcore/concrete and had a huge headache with levelling it all. That would have been painful enough, but due to the extension we have no decent access for anything larger than a barrow. Ironic that I've probably moved more than twice that, by barrow, thanks to the pond
The risers are really easy to use once you get the hang of it and can be seated on gravel or hardcore, so no faffing with concrete. In retrospect I would probably go for a different make (Eterno Ivica) because they have a very handy key that allows you to adust the height without lifting the tiles. They're more expensive, but it would be quite a time saver. My only slight concern is that the void creates a nice habitat for vermin... no such problems yet, although we have a couple of nut trees and the squirrels seem to like hiding their stash under there
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12-11-2018, 08:45 AM #50
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12-11-2018, 10:40 AM #51
Ta Fingers crossed for decent weather this coming weekend and I'll almost be finished with the construction side of things...
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17-11-2018, 05:58 PM #52
Bit more progress. Walls almost done, air to bottom drains sorted & tested, waterfall installed.
Should finish the blocks tomorrow. Then a good tidy up and get the patio tiles leveled (some are slightly on the piss). Next weekend it'll be rendering. Need to decide what to use to cap the block walls... was going to use flat white coping stones, but might use tiles instead. The timber is sat on the blocks because I briefly contemplated using that...
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At the back right of the pond (nearest to the waterfall) there's a 3-4cm gap between the corner tiles because my pond walls weren't quite square. I've cemented in a piece of 1" pressure pipe to use as a filler or trickle feed... fills the gap nicely and it is now an intentional design feature, rather than a mistake
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20-11-2018, 10:13 PM #53
I froze my little nuts off fitting and wiring up an led strip under the tile overlap... only one strip so far, that covers two sides, but quite pleased. The idea is that it will provide some illumination of the pond/fish (only from above) and will also cast some light onto the patio itself. Unfortunately, I received a second led strip today and realised that the first one is IP65 rather than IP68, so it's going to have to come off and be returned. The IP68 one looks very robust, nicely encapsulated in silicone.
Because I'm sad, the LEDs are RGBW, but having been playing with the colours I could probably have just gone for white and saved a few quid.
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24-11-2018, 05:52 PM #54
Today I learned that I STILL can't render...
I'd hoped that my previous experience would mean I'd make a better fist of the rendering, but no... I'm still shit. Didn't help that I was finishing off at dusk, but that's no excuse for the rest of it... lord knows what it will look like in the light of day.
Looks OK from a distance...
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24-11-2018, 07:35 PM #55
Looks ok from here (on my phone). I personally would t even attempt it so can only say well done to you. As with all DIY it’s always you that knows / notices all the flaws, reality is it’s a lot better than you think I suspect.
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24-11-2018, 09:45 PM #56
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25-11-2018, 06:52 AM #57
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30-11-2018, 07:36 PM #58
Daredevil/suicidal rudd and finally started filling
Yesterday I had a call from my wife, who'd popped home for lunch... there was a fish in the big pond. That pond is essentially empty... just a plastic sheet, some debris and a few rainwater puddles. Somehow, one of the rudd had jumped out of the raised/anoxic pond, flapped across two skins of block wall, avoiding the 2" gap between them, fallen around six feet into the large pond and survived. It had found a puddle and was swimming around quite normally. By the time I got home, some four hours later, the puddles were a couple of inches deep and he'd managed to relocate to another part of the pond... took me a while to find him. Anyway, he was safely rescued and returned to the anoxic.
Spot the golden rudd...
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Spent the day cleaning the crap out of the bottom of the pond (sheet, mortar, leaves, general debris), re-fitted the LED lights and had a bit of a tidy up. My plan was to paint the render, but the weather is so poor it will be ages before it's properly dry, so I'm going to leave that until spring... it might mean I get very wet doing the bit under the waterdfall but if I'm careful I think I can do the rest easily enough without having to get into the pond.
So I've started filling... it's been going almost six hours and it's only about 20% full...
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09-12-2018, 12:18 PM #59
A quick update... pond filled. Fish transferred and seem happy They look so tiny in their new home...
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09-12-2018, 01:20 PM #60
Well done Gus, looks good. You’ll have to ask Santa for koi vouchers so you can treat yourself in the springtime.
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Aquaforte Dm vario 20000 pumps
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