Another brick in the wall

[Busy B]

He he..clever huh?

Yeah I know I haven't been around much. If I find the pics of the flowers from the summer, I'll pop those up too.

Sooooo anyhoo...Before I ran out of oomph and sunlight, I managed to get this wall built. I had a cement truck bring enough for a footing. It's a wall to slow down the snow load when it comes off of the greenhouse (hopefully) and keep the rocks from sliding that will go there. Another purpose is that will be the deep end of the pond and I don't want the grandbabies to fall in.

So I got to run the cement truck while poor hubby and kind cement driver shoveled the footing full:HAHA: . This was hubby's response:flamer: . After the footing cured I learned how to lay block. Hurrah for me! Rebar in the footing and thru the block work. That wasn't the hard part. Mortared a thin coat onto some wire lathe. Cement screws to hold it on. That sucked! More time to dry and bought some low budget slate from that friendly home improvement store. Ohhh...got a new toy too..a tile cutter. :cheers2U: So anyway, it turned out pretty good. I didn't grout it yet. Started to freeze as I was finishing up and I wanted to make sure it was pretty dry and the tiles weren't going to fall off before I did. Sealed it a bunch of times and have it covered now with plastic. I'll see in the spring how it held up.

So here it is!! I'm proud of myself..I did it all with my widdle hands (except the footing..hehe..)

[Peg]

WOW Buzy B, You should be proud of yourself, You did an awsome job. It looks great. I love it when I can do my own work. It's just so rewarding. And the compliments don't hurt any either :yup:
Peg

[Jackie Ramo]

Never mind when people admired it, Smith would take credit Men always take the credit.

Looks terrific Busy and a lot of work lugging that heavy stuff. In the first pic it looks to be attached to the greenhouse ??? is there space between the two?

Glad that you haven't given up on the pond build.

[GregBickal]

We had one whole outdoor East wall of our building tiled at work. It had 2" of foam even for insulation. The heat and cold expansion cycles made the tiles pop off all the time.

They tore it off this year and replaced it with Stucco....

[Busy B]

I think it's going to do what I wanted it to..had a foot of snow a few days ago and then it chinooked. Snow slid off and landed close to the ghouse. Yes Jackie there's about a 3 foot distance between the ghouse and the wall. Next year I'm digging a trench and will put perforated pipe, at a slope, to help drain the water away from the footing. The plumbing from the skimmer will go in the same trench. Piping to a waterfall skippy is the final plan. The other side of the wall will hold rocks to secure the liner so I'm glad the snow is falling where it is. I worried that a large dump of snow would take out the rocks.

Frost heaves are a biggy Greg so it will be a wait and see game if the slate stays on. I put a latex additive in the mortar and that was the reason for the wire lathe and skim coat. Hoping the slate would have a bit more of a bite than just the smooth concrete block.

Since I've had so much time to put this together I forget one year to the next what the final game plan is:doh: The other side of that is time to keep thinking and rethinking. The only place that really has me worried now is the bottom drain. I should of left that out maybe. Even with a ball valve to shut the filters down, I'm worried of the piping left exposed to the elements. Already seen what 30 below does to pipes.

[Jackie Ramo]

Its going to be nice Busy once its done.

If you are concerned about a bottom drain freezing in those temps I will say that the retro drain I put in this year did an amazing job. Probably not perfect but I could move it to 'dead' spots easily with the handle of the net so the bottom was always spotless. This only took about 20 seconds unless I had to go to the greenhouse and get the net then it took 40 :)

[Ahhuhz]

Hey Nanook Bee,

How are you doing? Walls look great!

Come on down here, it will be in the 60's during the day this week. Pond is in the mid 50's and the kids are still eating.

They keep saying @#$*&}}@@** which is Koi for Thank You! :) :)

Best move we ever made!!!!!

[Busy B]

Retro might be an idea Jackie..the piping coming up into the filter bay is where I'm thinking I might have problems. That box to the side of the pond is for the filter. Already have the pipe glued coming from the bottom drain so I could build and backfill. About a foot of the pipe would be exposed going into the barrel so may have to reconfigure or rethink. Nothing is plumbed yet in the box and the bottom isn't screwed down or anything so my options are still somewhat open.

Hey Chuck!! Glad you got that move under your belt and your happy! And your finny friends too! We're having one of the mildest winters I've seen in awhile here. Just probably means it will last longer and the frost will go deeper. Last year it went down 18 foot because of lack of snow cover when it got cold. I like the warmer tho, not complaing. Can't leave cause the work is here. And the grandbabies.

This is hubby's new home away from home...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V4ZHUF3LO1M

Oh..and while I was digging around there found this one..

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5DTd2S_N0HI&feature=related

The bear in the doorway, hubby took the pic's.

[Jackie Ramo]

Great videos. Those guys look like they are having fun. But it looks cold to me :HAHA:

Take the bottom drain out of the pond and suck the water out of the connection with the shop vac. Shouldn't be much as most will drain out the hose when removed from the pond.