Hey guys, just wanted to share my experience building a pond for one of my friends. It is 15ft long, 8ft wide, and about 8-12 inches deep. This was a first time for everything for us three, so please go easy with the complaints. Feedback is a must though! Also, maybe some stocking ideas?
Day 1:
This whole project was pretty random, I've been wanting to build a pond in my backyard for a while now but i had no room so i talked to my friend about it. He said that he too was interested in one and he had the perfect place for it, so one hour later we started soaking the grass to make it easier to dig.
We then used spray paint to outline a pond (yes, this whole project was free-winged)
Then we had to do one of the harder parts, digging. It took about 4 hours to completely dig and flatten the dirt. The digging was not too bad, but we had trouble figuring out where and how to pour the dirt. I would recommend anyone doing this project to use a 2 front wheeled wheelbarrow.
At this point, there was no turning back. We started to think what we got ourselves into...
Four hours later, there it is! not much to look at but you can see the remains of a one-wheel wheelbarrow. Oh the abuse that thing went through...
We then made a trip to home depot to buy some underlayment and bought the liner from lowes. This concluded the first day.
Day 2: We wanted to cut the edges but didn't. I would recommend leaving it because you'll be amazed how much of it sinks down when you add the water to the liner. It would also help if you do this on a non-windy day that happens to be under 90 degrees.
We added the liner on top of this and started to fill it up. Again, don't cut anything until the water is in. We then jumped in and started pushing the liner down in the corners. Be careful to lift the liner from the edge when you're doing this because it can tear. The liner that we bought was 35mm which is some really thick material.
So we filled it up to see what it looked it. Surprisingly this thing was level, but i would recommend making sure that the walls of the pond are all equal height.
At this point, we were all sore and aching from the digging. We decided to call it a day and go buy some rocks!
Day 3: We picked up the rocks that we bought and hand carried all 2800lbs back to the yard. We folded the liner back to the rock. This started to look half-as*ed (excuse the language). So we decided we needed to think about this...
Now that we had the rocks settled, we started to think about the fountain, we bought about 500lbs of slate and hand carried that to the back. We started working with the rocks to get the perfect angle. We then cemented it. We then started working on the filter/pump. We bought a pump over at harbor freight rated at 1800 gallons/hour (make sure the pump can remain on for 12+ hours at a time, and that it is for ponds/dirty water). We split the output pipe in two, one leading to the water fall, and the other to the filter. The filter was made out of a rubbermaid box with sponges and other materials.
The rocks still looked out of place, so we decided to dig a 8 inch lip that is about 4'' deep around the edge of the pond so that we could place the rocks on that rather then the grass. Check out that wheelbarrow now!
We then refolded the liner and added some small touches.
Day 4: We started the water fall and all went well. We then added the lights.
The lights came with a bunch of lenses so we put them behind the waterfall to see which would look the best.
We went with the green. Overall, it took 3 guys 4 days of work to do this and it is a lot easier then we thought it would be. Feel free to leave comments!
Day 1:
This whole project was pretty random, I've been wanting to build a pond in my backyard for a while now but i had no room so i talked to my friend about it. He said that he too was interested in one and he had the perfect place for it, so one hour later we started soaking the grass to make it easier to dig.
We then used spray paint to outline a pond (yes, this whole project was free-winged)
Then we had to do one of the harder parts, digging. It took about 4 hours to completely dig and flatten the dirt. The digging was not too bad, but we had trouble figuring out where and how to pour the dirt. I would recommend anyone doing this project to use a 2 front wheeled wheelbarrow.
At this point, there was no turning back. We started to think what we got ourselves into...
Four hours later, there it is! not much to look at but you can see the remains of a one-wheel wheelbarrow. Oh the abuse that thing went through...
We then made a trip to home depot to buy some underlayment and bought the liner from lowes. This concluded the first day.
Day 2: We wanted to cut the edges but didn't. I would recommend leaving it because you'll be amazed how much of it sinks down when you add the water to the liner. It would also help if you do this on a non-windy day that happens to be under 90 degrees.
We added the liner on top of this and started to fill it up. Again, don't cut anything until the water is in. We then jumped in and started pushing the liner down in the corners. Be careful to lift the liner from the edge when you're doing this because it can tear. The liner that we bought was 35mm which is some really thick material.
So we filled it up to see what it looked it. Surprisingly this thing was level, but i would recommend making sure that the walls of the pond are all equal height.
At this point, we were all sore and aching from the digging. We decided to call it a day and go buy some rocks!
Day 3: We picked up the rocks that we bought and hand carried all 2800lbs back to the yard. We folded the liner back to the rock. This started to look half-as*ed (excuse the language). So we decided we needed to think about this...
Now that we had the rocks settled, we started to think about the fountain, we bought about 500lbs of slate and hand carried that to the back. We started working with the rocks to get the perfect angle. We then cemented it. We then started working on the filter/pump. We bought a pump over at harbor freight rated at 1800 gallons/hour (make sure the pump can remain on for 12+ hours at a time, and that it is for ponds/dirty water). We split the output pipe in two, one leading to the water fall, and the other to the filter. The filter was made out of a rubbermaid box with sponges and other materials.
The rocks still looked out of place, so we decided to dig a 8 inch lip that is about 4'' deep around the edge of the pond so that we could place the rocks on that rather then the grass. Check out that wheelbarrow now!
We then refolded the liner and added some small touches.
Day 4: We started the water fall and all went well. We then added the lights.
The lights came with a bunch of lenses so we put them behind the waterfall to see which would look the best.
We went with the green. Overall, it took 3 guys 4 days of work to do this and it is a lot easier then we thought it would be. Feel free to leave comments!
