Alot of people are also alergic to the pressed and formed composite decking like trex.

No lawn but just trading one type of maintenance for another. I had a 6' by 14' pond for 10 years at my old house and I figure it only takes about 2 minutes a week to mow that size of grass compared to the time it took to clean filters, net debris and clean out sludge that builds up over the years on the bottom. Of course the beauty of a pond is worth the effort. My neighbors loved going to sleep to the sound of the water falls and I had people from all over the neighborhood sneeking into my backyard to take a look at the pond. My favorite visitor was the pelican that ate all my fish that I had been growing for 3 years! I just moved into a new house but the yard isn't as big and is more sloped so I'm going with an above ground formal pond and waterfall this time around.

We've had our front yard pond for 6 years now so I know what kind of maintenance is involved. It's only about a 7 x 8 pond with a long stream bed, but the maintenance has been pretty minimal. I haven't opened up the skimmer once this season. Although there's a Heron in our area that ate all of our fish 8" or less :(. We're going to get one of those motion sensing hidden scarecrow things next season.

I was think of getting something similar as well. There's a number of motion sensor activated items for keeping cats out of flower beds so I'll have to look into these when the time comes.

The pond is looking great and it's great to see the kids involved with it!Getting someone else to do the digging and rock hauling is the way to go. I used up a whole month of evenings the summer I did my pond. Lucky for me it was a new area so I didn't have far to go to dump the dirt and I used some of it to build up the waterfall area. But did I ever learn the hard way that a whole heavy wheel barrow full of clay equates to a very small area of excavation. I actually planned on a large oval sized pond but went with a peanut shape just because I was sick of digging and hauling.

I think they are on the 14th trailer full of dirt hauled away already!!!! I remember hand digging my pond 6 summers ago. Everyday I'd come home from work and get the rubber boots on and go dig (mostly it was raining). I'd dig until well after dark. People would always come by and ask what I was doing digging in the dark. I found out a quick way to cut chit chat was simply say "I need to bury a body." It was worth digging it by myself and all of the rock I found by driving by new subdivisions and looking for freshly excavated basements and there was usually a pile of unwanted rocks that was dug up. However, with the scale of project that I'm doing now, even if I had lots of help, there would be no way I'd be able to move a 3 foot boulder. I'm quite happy with the progress so far.

Framed out the deck today so it gives a much better visual of what it'll look like.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo-12.jpg

Racoons are definitely the biggest pain in the butt with our pond. The herons and kingfishers are bad enough, but at least they only get the fish and don't cause damage like the coons do.

Looking AWESOME! Your yard looks bigger with the framing put in...gives better size perception. That pond is going to be rad.

I'm sorry if I have missed it but how much do you think it costs to do this kinda thing and what do you expect to pay in utility costs running this thing? Thanks.

Holy smokes Dez!! Looks AMAZING!!! My yard next pal! lol I'll be putting in a huge diy led set up though... with a full snorkel pool! I wish.

Priceless :). Well, my wife and I have decided to keep the total cost to ourselves. It's mostly my own labour and the material costs. The only labour we're paying out is for the pond people, but it's worth it. The pond will probably cost about $100/month just cause of the size of the waterfalls. There is 3" pipe feeding the large falls and 2" pipe feeding the small falls. 1HP pump and 1/2 HP pump. It's worth it to us as we typically don't vacation in the summer but we'll go away in the winter.

Johnny, we are lighting the pond with LED lights :). I think we are also going to have 4 panels of glass for a see through bridge that you can walk on.

:eek: That's going to be some nice waterfalls!!

Thanks Mindy. Having the deck framed out definitely gives us a better perspective. There is a lot mor seating now. Those rocks beside the deck were designed to be sat on. We also have 400 sq ft of patio attached to the house that we built when we moved in 6 yrs ago. That's where the outdoor dining set is eventually gonna go. From the yard looking into the house is a direct view of my aquarium.

Dez... you just became my hero!! Your yard is freakin' (with a pretend scottish accent) amazing!! I'm so jealous!

How thick will the glass have to be to walk on? Or am I misinterpreting?

We are going with 1/2" tempered. 4 panels of 11" x 36". And yep, we'll be able to walk on it. We'll get a suction cup from princess auto for an easy "lift and clean". Should be interesting. I just thought of it while walking over the bridge last night and ran it by Caley and she thinks it's awesome. Then we called our glass friend and believe it or not, for the square footage, the glass is almost the same price as the composite decking.

Hey Dez, consider adding a 3M coating to the glass that you replace once a year to keep the scratches on the 3M instead of the actual glass. I missed that part...that's a pretty awesome idea.

Wowsers Dez looks awesome.....that must have taken a lot of fragging :wink:

Amazing Dez...you really raise the bar with what ever you are doing!

Well, the pond is done now. I am going to wait until the spring to put the pond plants and all of the shrubs/ground cover/perennials around the pond. I will wait until after all the planting to put the bark mulch covering everything else. So this will be how she sits until next year. I finished the deck and tomorrow I'll order the glass to fit into the 4 spaces on the bridge. Here are a couple of pics.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo-13.jpg

This picture shows a couple of stepping stones above the water level. The kids came home from school today and they were soooo happy. They jumped around and immediately took there shoes off and went knee deep in.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo1-3.jpg

So beautiful Dez! I wish my yard looked like that!

Holy wowzers!! You sure move fast! You've done a lot of work, and YOWZA she looks like a beauty! Good job!

Looks like the leak test is a success! When are you going to add the salt?

WoW!! this has turned out very beautiful and yes, very fast. :smile:

That is awsome ... I am so envious of you.



Chris

Wow! Fast work Dez. Looks great!

Dez, I am curious on much this build cost you? I got a fairly large backyard that I might want to convert into a pond. I really like what you have done, it is very well planned and executed. :wink:

Unfortunately, this may not be what you want to hear - my wife and I have agreed to keep the cost of this project to ourselves. It was pricey, but well worth it to us. However, I saved a ton by doing everything that I could by myself. I pretty much hacked away at it every chance I had by myself, with my wife helping when she could. Made several trips to places to get gravel, lumber, stones, sand, soil, plants, to the dump etc. With the pond company we received several gift certificates for our 10 year anniversary last summer and we will be using those gift certificates toward the pond itself. The only labour we paid out was for the pond company and a couple of teenagers here and there to help dig/weed etc (mainly it was to help those teenagers out during the summer to raise money for certain causes.

i agree with you keeping the cost to yourself...its not the cost that counts its the time spent with family in the space that makes it ...priceless

ps i have to chat with you in the next month or so....if your willing to ship out a few frags to me again....will wait untill your work load lessens.

I'm just amazed

Thanks for the reply Dez. I understand if you don't want to disclose the total cost of build. I just want to get a reference on how much it would run me, but I guess it wouldn't really matter unless if I factor in the labor. Never the less it is awesome. Keep us posted. The pond is bad ass.

The wife says the backyard looks like a picture out of a home design magazine. Nice job.

u got shots of the "mechanical" stuff for us equipment junkies ;)?

Nice touch with the glass in the bridge!

Ya that glass is a brilliant idea love it! I may try to adopt that for my pond next year :-)

hey Des, looks amazing so far, I have been trying to figure out what to do with my back yard as we have 1/2 an acre with a few fruit trees and the rest is grass. I was thinking a waterfall that turns into a river and a smaller pond area then you have. this gives me some ideas how things look in a befor /after perspective.

one question though, are you sure 1/2" glass is going to be strong enough for the size of holes you left there? what if some one fat comes to visit and see the oaisis you have created like me :mrgreen: most of the walking panes I have seen are more like 1" thick.

somthing that big you could almost stock it with rainbow trout and go fishing haha

Steve

I'd be about someone with a piece of sand or a pebble in thier shoes taking out a pannel rather than big bertha.

In industrial applications they use tempered laminated glass. That way, if the top layer shatters, you wont fall through.

There is a glass company that rents some warehouse space I have. They said that for that size, 6mm tempered will do. There are pictures of a person standing on a 48" x 48" piece of 6mm tempered only supported from 2 edges in one of his glass magazines. So we went double the thickness and tempered. It's only 11" wide so I'm not too concerned. I looked into what Mindy suggessted (rock guard 3M stuff), but that stuff is more expensive than my glass, so I'll just replace it every couple of years. The glass is costing me less than $200 for all 4 sheets, so quite reasonable.

Believe it or not, it was a spontaneous idea I had while framing the deck and then I prompty called my glass guy to check on cost/strength (of course after consulting my wife for the OK)

Will probably come after the weekend. I am going Scuba diving this weekend so I won't be around and it's dark now already.