A Koi Pond is Born!
Follow Along from Conception
to Completion as The Pond Doc Builds a State-of-the-Art, Low-Maintenance Doc's
Dream System Koi Pond in His Own Back Yard.
Pond Construction Stage
Pouring the Floor
Beginning Date: August 10, 2006
The floor of the pond is going to be what keeps the structure intact. We need a smooth surface that won't crack as the ground shifts. We will have a professional company who does foundations for a living come in to pour it. The Doc was worried about this process but after he spoke with a gentleman who pours the foundations of many of the homes in our area he was more at ease that it would be done correctly. They are experts with pouring foundations in mountainous areas such as ours and gave us some great pointers on how to prepare the structure.
This page was last updated 09/26/2006
Click on the Thumbnails for Full-Size Pictures
| August 10, 2006 | ||
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Before a cement floor could be poured there is preparation that needs to be done. Dried mortar that had collected at the base of the walls were knocked away. This trash was later shoveled into the backfill areas around the outside of the wall. | |
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Before back-filling the trenches along the floor of the pond, our worker smoothed the floor by clearing out the debris by raking any loose clogs of dirt, mortar and trash into the trenches. The floor was built up at the back and sloped very gently toward the front to encourage debris to continually be swept to the bottom drains and removed by the filter. | |
| August 16, 2006 | ||
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After the trenches were filled the openings to the drains were taped off to prevent any cement from getting into them and clogging them up. | |
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A chalk-line was snapped to show the fill line. The concrete mixture would need to be at least 4" to be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the water without cracking. Cracked cement underneath could also cause cracking in our lining. | |
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The cement truck arrived and a telescoping ramp was off-loaded and hooked up to guide the cement mixture into the pond. It was quite an event! We were very glad that we were able to find a local company who were experienced with pouring concrete foundations. They were the ones who convinced us to forgo the metal mess and use fiberglass in the cement mix to get the strongest floor we could get without the worry of cracking in the future. | |
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The cement was mixed on the truck and released into the ramp. The Doc and I watched in anticipation as the first of the mixture flowed down the ramp and onto the floor of the pond. It took quite a few mixings before our contractor was satisfied with the consistency of the concrete. | |
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Once satisfied with the mixture, the truck driver was given the okay to let her roll. | |
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The mixture was spread to fill the floor up to the chalk line. The ramp was repositioned periodically to deliver the cement to the right areas of the pond. | |
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The last of the concrete was applied into the highest corner. | |
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The concrete was roughly spread and evened out. | |
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A funnel was created around the two bottom drains to encourage debris to go to into the drains and out of the pond so the filters can continuously remove it. | |
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The concrete is smoothed by hand around the inside of the walls. You can tell how thick the cement was poured by how much his boots are sunken. | |
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Once the floor was roughly smoothed and sat a while, the foundation fellows strapped some snowshoe-looking things onto their feet so they wouldn't sink into the floor. | |
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Using these things, he is able to get down on his hands and knees to get more detailed with the smoothing process. | |
| The last process was to drag a broom of sorts across the floor before the cement mixture set to give it just a little roughness so that the spray-on lining could adhere to it better. | ||
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One can never be too careful when it comes to preventing future leaks in a pond. Here, the Doc sealed the bottom drain around the perimeter as a precaution against seepage from around the outside of the drain. | |
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Our floor was perfectly poured and we are happy with the results. After a rain the pond filled up some. We have the drain lines capped for now so the water had nowhere to go. This picture illustrates that the floor slopes down to the drains. This position of the drain is so important! Even with a traditional liner pond having the drain at the very lowest part encourages debris to go to the drain and out of the pond where it can be filtered out of the water via the (in our case) bead filter. | |
| Proceed to "Creating the Tier" |
The Project Schedule
(click on each step for pictures & details)
Though I tried to place each step in chronological order I am finding that as we progressed I often have to go back and revise what I've already completed. The color codes are as follows: BLACK is "Not Started", GREY is "In Process", PURPLE is "Completed" and RED is "Recently Revised"
Have a question about the construction of our dream pond (or any other question for that matter)? Click HERE!
To get to each section of our project so that you can see pictures and follow along with our progress, simply click on the stage in which you are interested.
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Finishing Up |
Practical Information | |||||
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