Well, my prep. list continues to grow. As mentioned in other posts, I am between construction phases of a 5a project. An access road is cut in, the timber is cleared, and my pockets are MT. It's kinda odd how the "MT pockets" thing turned out to be a blessing in that it has caused me to take time out after clearing and wait 'til next year to build the dam and bottom-scape. Darn good thing, too, because you guys are really opening my eyes to the multitude of pre-water advantages during construction. So, the next consideration.....
I want to add a sand beach. Nothing more than about 100' square, maybe half in the water. The area chosen is a nice gentle slope near the future homesite. The area (as is the surrounding basin) is currently a layer of about 3 feet of silt/topsoil with about 30 ft of clay beneath. I don't want to disturb the beach zone because it is the exact grade I want and matches the adjacent shore. This means that I plan to build a sand beach on top of this silt/topsoil base, maybe cutting a 12" deep core to accept a bed of sand.
My thoughts: Do I need a fabric to contain the sand bed AND minimize weed growth? Is this a mistake to lay this sand bed on the silt/topsoil...should I remove the topsoil and replace the grade with clay (hoping "no")? What are all the subsequent "good ideas" related to this facet that I'm not thinkin' of?
Your thoughts...?

Brettski:

I found the thread I remembered: Beach Sand

It discusses sources/costs of sand and possible underlayment materials (a little, at least).

My wife's experience with landscape cloth under sand has shown that it will prevent almost all plants from growing up through the sand, but after a couple of years or so, you can have about as many new plants growing IN the sand as existed before, unless you regularly remove them.

Thank ya, Theo....I searched "beach" before I posted and got seemingly nuthin...?
I am hoping to get the rest of the crew to kick in. This has got to be a "natch" for most pondsters.

Brettski :

Sand will work its way into the underlying dirt and will tend to wash down slope. You can stop the later by using a small ridge/barrier on the down slope end of the beach. During dam construction have the dozer make a small basin at the beach by pushing some dirt from the water edge of the beach area to the deep end of the beach to make the berm and thus create a basin. We still have to add more sand every few years to replace that which is lost.

Think about your beach location wrt a pier and shade/sun , trees and silt washing in on the sand. If you will have a pier it is good for it to be next to the beach ( parents watching kids or sunning vs swimming). Also watching the fish use the sand beach to spawn from a seat on the pier or fishing for same. ewest

Brettski, I'm a believer in landscape fabric. We get it in 12' wide rolls which is a pretty good size to work with. Theo is right and weeds will find their way in but the fabric will help separate the sand from the underlying soil, making the weeds easier to pull and require less sand replenishment. I do not have a beach but I know of three in my area. The one that has about a 12" layer of sand and fabric underneath is by far the nicest.

WARNING: Cat's like the sand too!

Thanks, guys....
Ryan, do you have a little more direction on the fabric thing? I am familiar with the lawn & garden stuff in 3 - 4' wide rolls, but I think I remember "geo-textile" or something like that in one of the (yours?) past posts...? 12' wide rolls would "rock"...I'll bet the price does, also.
Ewest...
the plan is to keep it simple; cut a 12" deep core thru the entire beach area, above and below the water line. Line the bottom and up the edges with a roll of Ryan's geo-textile, super-duty "beach barrier" landscape fabric, and back up the sand trux. Are you suggesting that an additional berm be rolled up at the bottom of the beach area below the water line?
Regarding cats, the coyotes will enjoy their company.

The last time the Company purchased the Geotextile fabric a 12-1/2'x 360' roll cost $250. It is very heavy duty. That works out to less than 6 cents sq. ft. Good deal but a lot of material. I get it from State Highway Supply. They have two types. One is woven one is fibrous. Both are good, the woven is cheaper. You may be able to buy partial rolls, find a road or bridge contractor that could part with a little, or find other uses for it such as flower beds, garden, paths, etc. The economy grade 3'x 50' stuff at the big box stores works out to about the same price/sq.ft. but is much lower quality.

Brettski :

Keep it simple is a good idea as long as it works as planned. I am not suggesting anything extra. As long as you have a basin to keep the sand from washing down slope into deeper water and away from the beach you should be ok . The fabric should keep the sand from mixing with the underlying dirt. If the top of the sand is even with the top of the dirt you will get much more silt on top of your sand than if the top of the sand is higher than the dirt but constrained by a berm. Think about a sand box in the yard. If you dig it out so that it is ground level when full it will get dirt in the sand quicker than if you buy a plastic sand box (above ground) and fill it with sand. So I guess what I am suggesting is to do exactly what you are planning but take the dirt from the core/trenching and use it to make a berm on the down slope end of the beach so that you can pile the sand up higher than the surrounding pond bottom. No extra work as you have to get rid of the dirt anyway. Might as well use it to your advantage. ewest

Thanks Ryan...any memory as to the name of the manufacturer of the 12' wide product? I could see the possibility of a full roll purchase if I could find it retail (or wholesale direct, if the manufacturer agrees).
Ewest...maybe I should consider a 6" core and used the excavated waste to build up a berm on all 3 sides (below waterline) to create a 12" deep pocket, elevating the top of the sand about 6" above the surrounding natural pond bottom..?

Here is a link to the MFG. Geotextile They also have a nice line of erosion control products

Ewest had some good suggestions. The better beach I commented on earlier has the sand piled up about 8" above the surrounding sod. Leaves seem to collect around the edges rather than in the sand.

Poifect! thanx again Ryan. I have just shot off an email to a sales rep at Geotextile.

This may give some info also:

http://www.landplan.com.au/index.htm

while we are on this landscape fabric stuff...i was preparing to strengthen my spill way which was just hard clay. first i put down the really good landscape fabric (i think it was the 250 bucks a roll stuff..supposed to be guaranteed for 20 years or so...i got it from a retired landscape architect...so don't know exactly where it came from.) anway, i put the stuff down over the spill way, and was going to put down big chunk rock. i threw some bermuda seed around it and on it in the meantime... well, i got busy, didn't have time to put the chunk rock down...and within 3 months...that bermuda grass has bonded to that stuff as hard as concrete. anyway...may be a cheaper solution to spillway/erosion areas for some of ya'll. some of the seed had also come from me mowing around it, and the clippings just flew over it and whala..before i knew it...thick bermuda over the spillway.

mark

Thought I’d bump this up to get some opinions on my situation. We’re nearly completed on the excavation of the swimming area and I want to be ready to get that worked on while the rest of the pond is dug. Here’s what I was thinking (and I’ll throw in the actual measurements when I visit the site this afternoon)…

Using 8 inches of pea gravel instead of sand and using the aforementioned geotextile type underlayment. I would create a separate basin, of sorts, from the rest of the pond, then a berm separating the pea gravel from the muddy rest of the pond. I was thinking a 4:1 slope and am curious if this is enough to keep the pea gravel from falling in and just piling up on the bottom. Also, I was planning on graveling only the beach area and leveled off swimming area, not touch the opposite bank. I wanted to make sure that wouldn’t interfere. We wouldn’t use these banks, would only enter from the one beach next to our camp area.

So I’d like to know a cost/performance effective fabric to lay down and what others’ experiences have been with what they’ve used. Maybe I should start my own thread on this, but I thought the history of this one might be nice to just add onto.

This isn't the best picture of the area I'm talking about and maybe I can add a better one later. Basically, the area I'm talking about is right there where the dirt meets the grass. It's much more excavated than that now, but this is the best picture I have on this computer here.

Wow, a blast from the past. Thanks for the memories, Omaha.
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Let me add this thread for an older edition of Geotextile -101
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...and this thread page, reviewing actual beach construction

Always great to go back and check out your well documented project Brettski. Thanks. Does my plan sound pretty reasonable compared to what you did? I'm using pea gravel instead of sand and my area is in a sliver of a corner of the small pond.

Ok, it's approximately an 40' x 80' area I have to work with. How does my plan look and how much rock will I need?

EDIT - found a material calculator and it looks like I'll need about 142 tons. Does that sound right? That sounds REALLY high?

The main players are the quality of the geotex fabric and a good, firm perimeter berm to the correct depth. I cannot say from experience, but I gotta think that pea gravel will stay in one place (on a slope) as good or better than sand.
Lyle and Scott Kriebel built a pea gravel beach at their project (I think...???) There are a couple others that frequent the forum that did the same. Hopefully they will kick in some input.

3200 sq feet at 6-8" deep is a VAST area to fill with pea gravel. Am I understanding you correctly? At 35-45/T you're talking about 5-6k in pea gravel. How much of this area do you want to rock, and how thick?

In my area, washed 1/4" pea gravel goes for about $10 per ton. You can knock a buck or so outta the price by going to the next size up (forgot the exact name), but it goes up to about 1/2" dia.
(pricing is quarry direct)

I can shave up the area of course, but the area I was looking at, from measuring today, is 40x80. Pretty large I know. I'll have to look at it a little more and maybe get a little creative.

You should consider all possible alternate beach materials to see what's acceptable that costs the least.

Around here, the lowest cost fill/sand type stuff is limestone screenings, which runs from large sand down to dust in size.

Ok, I'll try to put this down in pictures. This first one is how the pond should look once the excavation is complete. That half circle going into the pond is our camp jetty, where we will likely spend the majority of our time. Lots of plans for that, but for the time being, the swimming area. Just off the east side of that jetty.



This is what I really wanted, but it's obviously very large, possibly unnecessarily so, and thus, much more expensive.



Here is the less expensive option. Less room, but possibly still feasible for what we want. A nice swimming area for the kids. Like everyone here, I have so many ideas for this area, volleyball, rope swing, etc. and I want to make sure that I don't short change ourselves and end up with a less than desirable swimming area.



So I guess what I'm asking, my latest question anyway , generally how big do you want to go? This is a 2/3 acre pond. My son and his friends love to swim probably more than anything else. I want to make sure there's enough room for them to enjoy themselves (while I fish ;)).

Anyway, I could use some "If I was you..." type answers.

Is there a water inlet just north/top (end of pic). I am concerned that silt does not wash in on the beach. I would check other fill options. Sand on top of gravel works well and cuts the rock amount down a bunch. Pea gravel costs too much and larger size hurts the feet. Big gravel covered with sand may be an option. White sand (masonry) not red road sand. Rock gets slippery over time with growth and or silt , sand does not. Sand can be raked to clean it up rock no so easily.

But sand gets dispersed over time doesn't it? It eventually does erode? If I go the gravel/sand mixture, what ratio would you use, as in how many inches. 4" each or so?

And, yeah, the main draw for the pond is that northern most point. I was planning on filling via a trash pump from the nearby creek and TJ had suggested digging some holes along that draw to catch some of the silt.

...another thought
I would maintain concerns for the overall, general location of the beach. When it is confined to a (nearly) enclosed area, vegetation in the water might surround the area quickly. Any water depths of 4 ft or less are presumed to propogate weeds and cattails. The actual beach zone, with the geo fabric, will be weed free, but areas adjacent might propogate an "ick" factor (not to be confused with ich). If the zone you selected has a good, continuous depth as you face out from the shore, then the worst that can happen is you will have weeds on either side, but you can swim directly out to deeper and cleaner/clearer water. If your opposite shoreline is too close, you will be trapped for swimming.

Not sure I understand. I do plan on putting in a liner under the rock, one to keep it weedless, secondly to keep the rock from sinking in the mud. Basically there will be 3 banks and an open side to the rest of the pond. Of those 3 banks, one will be beach shore, the others will be the same as the rest of the pond, vegetated banks.

OK, it's just me not comprehending the scope of the work. You are going to fill in the entire cove area?

'Cove'. That's the word I've been looking for when describing this area. Haha. I've been calling it 'sliver'.

I wanted to fill the entire cove area, because I anticipate swimming to be a primary attraction for the kids. My boy especially loves swimming more than anything. Him and the neighbor kids are always swimming in our pool all summer. So it'll be awesome to have a little swimming hole for them at the pond and I can work on other things or fish while they do this. And we can get creative with the area too, as far as that jumping dock and a rope swing.

When you're done, will it be called "Omaha Beach"?

JHAP, I owe you $0.05 royalty.

If I had a nickle for everytime I've been told that...

...you'd feel like royalty

Yeah, I'll add some razor wire and landmines and make it a real challenge for the kids. Hey, if you really want to swim....

So those of you with beaches, how big did you make yours and if you could do it again would you do it just the way you did or make it bigger?

Omaha,
I think mine is 20X60. For me it's perfect. I had the dozer guy cut a basin and make a 1 foot high barrier of dirt around the lower half of the basin. Half the beach is out of water and half is under. I think it turned out perfect. It took four dump truck loads of sand at $150 each to fill it up. I did lay down some fabric I puchased at Lowe's, but I'm not sure if it helped or not. I know it didn't hurt anything. As far as I can tell the sand has not moved. I think I have some pictures in one of my other threads under dam construction.

I take it it's 20 wide, 60 deep so you have nice beach and get into deeper water too? 20 wide seems to be enough for you though? How many people do you generally have swimming at one time?

And how does sand, or a sand/pea gravel mix, compare to straight pea gravel price-wise?

Sand moves little if it is enclosed as per prior posts. A better pic later. We use just sand no rocks.

Our beach runs from the grass to the pier and about 50 ft into the water (to the rope).



Mixed sand beach – Owned by BG

That's awesome ewest. How big is it? I'll have to check the 3 different prices (straight rock, rock/sand mix, straight sand) for the 40x80 before scaling it back if it's out of our range.

Omaha,
Who are you using to get quotes on sand and the like? If you aren't already, you work direct with whatever quarry or pit is in your neck of the woods. They will have drivers, or will recommend privateers to haul their product to your site.

From what I understand my father knows someone "right over the hill" and we have a dump truck at our disposal so there's a big chunk off the cost right there. I asked him to talk to them by this weekend to see what price we'd be most comfortable with absorbing.

oh yeah, and another thought regarding construction....
When you build up a berm to actually gently elevate the sides of the "sandbox", you will also divert anything from washing into the sandbox. When you get a downpour of rain and the water starts washing topsoil and clay downhill toward your nice new sand beach, the berm will keep it out.

Oh, that brings up another point/question I'll ask you. As you can see in my diagram I'm not taking the beach rock/sand all the way to the bank. That dotted line, should that be all berm? I was initially thinking of just one long one from the corner bank to the east bank, just one line, but I'm thinking I should just go ahead and make the actual bowl like you did.

I'm still fuzzy on the plan....sorry.
Can you identify the different parts based on color?
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Oh, yeah, sorry. The darker blue is the unrocked waters, the lighter blue is the proposed beach bottom waters. The dashed line would be the underwater berm.

I did those diagrams in something like 2 minutes this morning so pardon the amateurism.

...and the yellow and brown strips?

Beautiful! And the BG bed pic is one of my alltime favorites!

Josh

Looking at the beach tucked back in the corner there raises a couple concerns for me already stated by Bski and Ewest - siltation and also the "ick" factor as corners are generally more apt to get weedy, more stagnant and grow FA - which is no fun in which to swim.

I have two suggestions now that I can see your diagram:

1. Maybe consider a smaller area than 3200 [80x40] sq ft - it seems cost prohibitive considering the size.

2. Have you thought about putting the beach on the point - on the other side of the dock - or is that water not offering the good slope?? Seems it would benefit from more water flow and reduces the issues of sediment and potential "ickiness"

Just some thoughts....

Ha. I keep assuming everyone can understand my kindergarten drawings.

The yellow would be the sand/rock on the shore and the brown is where I'm thinking of putting a dock for them to jump off of.

Oh, gotcha. I see what you're saying. Hmmmm. My thought process was, looking at the first diagram of the whole pond, was keeping the swimming area close to the camp jetty and also kind of away from the rest of the pond so as to not disturb fish opportunities. Do you think it'd be best to have it on the west side of the jetty there? It's more open, obviously and still right off the jetty. I hate to change up my plans and tick off my dirt guy.

This brings me right back to my original point about location within the pond. If that cove was 1/3 acre or more, you would have a good plan. I believe (?) it is much smaller. As it stands, if you do not capture the entire area with geotex fab, everthing around will grow over. How deep is the deepest area within the cove zone?

I think I misunderstood your post Brettski, sorry. The pond will end up being about 2/3 to 3/4 of an acre. The deepest spot in the cove area I think I can get is just a hair over 4 feet deep, so pretty shallow. That's because of the lesser slope for swimming of course.

I've been thinking and I hate to keep going back and forth with things, but last weekend I cleared out a spot on that west side of the jetty and now I'm thinking maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea to put it over there. More open water and still close to the jetty. Man, my dirt guy's going to bury me this weekend.

Its your pond and will be for generations of users. The dirt guy can easily change locations.

I like putting the beach next to the pier on the point not in the cove.

Yep, now I'm flipflopping here. Is that common?

Thinking of now going this route with it. Since clearing, there's a nice little tree right on that point that'll be a nice edge of the swimming area/dock. And I think the dock and kind of be a nice separator from the rest of the pond.

For the record, a real good pond builder would have recognized what you're doing and would have made strong suggestions to either support or challenge your plans. I think I would take that approach of "looking for his help and tapping his years of experience" to help avoid a poor logistical decision for a nice beach. My NRCS guy once told me nothing trumps ground truth when it comes to preparing excavation. Let your dirt guy help you make the decision. If, after you consider all we have discussed here, he says that a beach and swimming area would work out just fine within the cove, perhaps you will have learned something about HIS expertise and wisdom.

My dirt guy is only that, a dirt guy. Not a pond guy. It's his first pond. He's very good at moving dirt, he's been doing it his whole life, but I've had to instruct him and watch him very closely. And I don't really know what I'm doing of course, I'm very new to all of this. I rely very heavily on this forum for guidance and the help of good local guys like TJ to offer advice. I think I was a bit stubborn in my plans for keeping the swimming area isolated, but I appreciate the no nonsense answers and opinions you guys are so good at giving here. This will be a pond built by PondBoss, that's for sure. I'm just the laborer.

Here is a long distance pic.

Man, Ewest. You have always been humble and held back on showing off your diamonds. I think it's a way to hold the audience captive, cuz when you do let a nice shot of one of your ponds loose, it's always a mesmerizing beaut'.
V nice

Josh - that makes two of us...pondmeisters owing a lot to the forum. IMO I think your potential switch to the jetty might make your happier in the long run. I realize your uncle is gonna roll his eyes, but remember you get one shot at this unless you want to breach the dam and start all over. Take your time, get it right - don't suffer my fate and lose your opportunity to create contours and beaches before it's all underwater!

Your passion is infectious - keep knocking on Bski he's a visionary and can help you flesh out this dream. Read his early posts from 06. Have you checked out his website? Turn up your speakers. http://www.libertynaturepreserve.com

My vote would be for keeping the beach out of the cove.

There's a public access area near the house on the lake. It's silted over in the early spring, but the people swimming in it stir it up enough to wash any silt away. It's about 2' deeper than the surrounding water depth as well, probably due to no siltation. It wasn't a beach to start, but over the years it's turned into one, sandy bottom and all. No sand was transported in, but there is a lot of sand in the surrounding soil.

That water looks so calm. Very cool.



You're right. I've thought it through over and over and will head out there this weekend to really get a good look at it and I think I'm convinced this is the way to go. Now I just need to get a hold of some more PVC!



I've read most of the documentation of Bski's projects and continue to be impressed. I'll check out his website too. Thanks. You guys are awesome.

I will get a better pic of the beach. Thanks for the compliments guys. B'ski your pond view from the second floor in progress is every bit as beautiful as mine. So are many others (see B'ski's Pondapalooza I & II on his LNP web site).

Pic from Bill Cody.