First of all apologies for the long delay in posting, hopefully this will be a regular thing again for both myself and partner. I have lots of pictures from previous jobs saved so have plenty to blog about, including some of our recent millboard decks now that we are registered installers.
So this job was a fairly simple brief, a large wildlife pond with no filtration system, in a beautiful rural location on the outskirts of Usk in south east wales. First job was to take delivery of the machines. As there was a lot of dig out (over 300 tonnes) we hired in a 9 tonne excavator and a pair of 6 tonne dumpers. We marked the area out with spray paint and stripped the greenery.
Luckily for us, as the majority of the spoil needed to be taken off site, the local farmer had what could be described as a sink hole, opened up in one of his lower fields. This was caused by flood water draining away a few years back, so he was happy for us to fill that in for him. As we also had some excess top soil, he took that off our hands as well in a different location. This saved us on shipping the spoil out, and we’re always keen to try to limit on these things not only for cost saving, but for the green aspect of it also. So the first 2 days were just on digging the pond out.
Once this was done it was time for the underlay and liner. If you’re ever installing a large pond these 2 items can prove to be very expensive, but do not try to save money by buying an inferior product. Alway use a good quality underlay. You’ll know if it’s good quality when you’ve bought it as it will blunt your stanly knife within a handful of cuts. After all, it’s job is to stop sharp objects reaching the liner. As for the liner, we always use 2 or 3mm butyl liner. The one problem with using 3mm butyl is the weight of it. The liner for this job was just over 500kg, so had to be craned in with the digger. We also installed it during the UK heat wave and the 33c temps didn’t take long for the liner to be too hot to touch, but within a few hours it was in.
When you install a liner remember to think of where the overflow needs to go, and make sure the lowest part of the liner is there, this will also determine the water level of the pond.
Next stage is the 10 tonnes of rockery stone. The driver that delivered it was very helpful and not only loaded our 1 remaining dumper directly, but was also happy enough to wait 5 mins for me to unload it between each of the 4 loads. Each piece was then craned into place, sitting on a concrete base which was also sat on another layer of underlay. This process went very smoothly compared to some tricky jobs we have done in the past
Last stage of the job was to push the remaining soil back into the first shelf, and turn the tap on. It has currently been 4 days since we finished, and we predicted 9 days of continuous flow to fill. Depending on any hosepipe restrictions we should be back in just over a week to finish the planting and tidy the banks. I will keep you updated when this goes ahead.
As always any questions or comments feel free to ask, and I will do my very best to answer them.
Thanks for your interest.
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Thanks. Much appreciated.
That's a big job. Are you allowed to use that much water right now?
Good to have you back. Hope everything is okay. Have you been playing with your cars?
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Ha. We were still allowed at that point. The client is left watching it now, so it depends on the situation local to them. Yes still messing around with the cars, nothing too exciting to report on their at the moment though.
That's one huge effort! I'm looking forward to following your progress as it fills with both water and life.
Should be back to finish the planting g at some point next week, hopefully.
Wow - that's spectacular! Will this also be for swimming or just aesthetics and wildlife?
Your post has been chosen for the next edition of 'The Garden Shed', a collection of archived posts by @gardenhive that feature gardening advice, DIY tips, homesteading tips and inspiring gardens.
Just a wildlife pond this one.
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Great work 👌
Thanks.
What a fun plant post🌿
It was a good project.