Day 1 Pond Updates

[chrisjbell]

Ah, does sound like fun. Most folks out here use 'dozers and occasionally excavators for pond building but there was a guy down the road that got ahold of a dragline and used that and what had to have been a 40 or 50 year old Cat 'dozer to build his pond. That sucker is probably 75 feet deep. Only problem is that the road that runs next to it now gets water seeping under it so it falls apart, but I think the drainage is getting better.

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> Only problem is that the road that runs next to it now gets water seeping under it so it falls apart </font>

That's something else that should be discussed when building a pond. It is one thing to dig a hole and have ground water fill it. It is another thing to dam up a valley to create what is really a reservoir. I imagine that compacting the soil for the dam is extremely important, especially to anyone living downstream from the dam /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[NoTrespassing]

Day 2a

 

[NoTrespassing]

Day 2b

 

[MossRoad]

Now that 2b picture really shows the scale of the excavator when near the truck. Man, the right tool for the job is great!

 

[NoTrespassing]

Well, we were hoping for rain and I guess we hoped a little too hard /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif The pond and dam were done last Thursday and on Friday the rain started to fall. The red shale was put down on the dam and serves as our driveway. The dam is about 150 feet long. Friday we had 2 3/4" of rain in about 2 hrs. That raised the water level up to about 8 ft. below the culvert. Saturday we had no rain. Sunday it rained steady all day and into the night. By the time I got up Monday morning we had 4 1/2 additional inches of rain and it was still coming down. It sprinkled most of the day Monday for a total of over 8 inches for Fri. thru Mon. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif On Monday morning the water was rising about 1 foot per hour and was flowing thru the culvert by 11am. The dam held up pretty well all things considered. From what we can tell so far we will need to put some additional red shale on the road and maybe some larger white stone on the front of the dam. The dam settled almost 1 foot in the front and the back making the road about 4 ft. narrower than it was. We will be putting up a guard rail made of utility poles and cable. Here are some pictures.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Day 5b

 

[NoTrespassing]

Day 5c

 

[NoTrespassing]

day 5d

 

[jinman]

Kevin, your dam and pond look really nice. About how deep is it at the dam? I wish I had some of that red shale for a road. The crushed limestone around here leaves a cloud of dust everytime you drive over it. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[NoTrespassing]

Thanks Jim, It should be about 30ft. deep, maybe 35 ft. in spots. The red shale or red dog as they call it around here goes for 10 bucks a yard hauled in. People usually use it for a base and then put white rock on top of it but I like the way it looks. They put our driveway in 3 yrs. ago and it's held up well so far.

Kevin

 

[gmason]

This picture of the water coming out of the pipe concerns me a little. It looks like there is still a good deal of fall from the pipe to the stream where the water finaly slows down a little. With that large pipe you need some really large boulders to slow the water down and disperse the energy. Or you'll see a large gouge in the backside of the pond dam.
With that size pipe ~2', you must expect some tremendous amounts of water flow. And with a huge amount of force when that water hits the slope.
Well just my 2cents /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif... from a pond owner/builder

gary

 

[NoTrespassing]

Thanks for your concern. What the picture doesn't show that well are the large pieces of concrete under the culvert. We took the old bridge and put it there. I may take a couple more pictures this evening and put em up.
Kevin

 

[wasabi]

Nice clean job. How will you prepare the pond to stock it and what types and quantities of fish do you have planned?