Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Human habitat; dreaming out loud

thanks for the kind words Brettski @ the pavillion. The lumber was rough sawn to my specs by a nearby sawmill. Will say from my conversations with them that Pecan is a great wood for smoking meat, but it's the pits for using as lumber. The oak takes many months to a year to air-dry, and even then will move quite a bit after it's up. A fire pit/ Bar-B-Que type structure is in the plans..when you start a project like these habitat things there is really no end to what a person can do (rock walls, rock walk ways, firepits, etc......) as long as the money holds out..lol

Wow, that looks great Mesocosm. It absolutely has the coolness factor associated with it. With the second set of photos you have of it inside and out, it is breathtaking, like you could spend a night or two in that thing and be in heaven. Now, the wife wants one when we finally get a pond going. I might tap your knowledge on that project in the future, if you don't mind sharing the lighthouse idea.

Thanks Ceadmin. I have spent the night before, but it was cold and before the tiny bathroom addition. But I'm looking forward to hanging out there during the warmer months. I even took a week off work recently to just work on the pond ecosystem. Unfortunately though, I live about 3 hours away from the pond.

Later
SC

Just a few close up's of the finished rock work of my last design seen in this thread. Enjoy
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=864&Number=110393#Post110393

(originally posted in http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=122728#Post122728)

Haven't posted in a while but couldn't help but show pictures of my Bridge. I have talked about doing this for years and finally decided to do it 2 weeks before my daughters open house. Got it done and 8:30am on the day of her open house.
BEFORE


AFTER



Its all treated lumber. I will probably stain or thompsonize in about a month. We started the footings on Saturday morning the 14th, three guys total, and finished the whole thing on Saturday Morning the 21st. The footings took all day saturday. 42 80# bags of quikcrete. The arches (3) of the bridge were done by tuesday night and moved into place. The first arch took almost all day sunday just trying to figure out how it all went together. The next two took about 2 hours each. Wednesday I was on my own and leveled and shimmed, Thursday I decked it, and Friday it was the railing with the spindles being done Saturday morning. Total cost just a tad over $1000.00 for a span of 28 feet. No real problems encountered other than someone not reading the plans correctly on the joists. Also we had a swim raft the we had under the arches so they could be intalled. If we didn't have the raft, I dont think this could of been done unless it was winter.

Footings 63" wide with two 6" steps. Main part of footing is about 2 feet deep with two post holes going deeper. Soil this is built on is really mostly fill so the back of both footings were bunkered with approx. 6 bags of concrete and 6 basketball to beachball sized boulders. Most of the load is lateral and this was sufficent to make it really stiff. Here are some photos of footings and arches. We used re-bar we had laying around put in vertically (about 6 pieces 4 feet long driven into ground) and 1 layer of wire mesh in upper 3" of each step. Arches are NOT actually attached to the footings, just sitting on them with 16 ga. galv straps to isolate the wood from the concrete.





The plans area available from rainbow bridge. Do a google search for it. I don't know if I could direct link so I didn't. He has varying different arch lengths and wood sizes to choose from and answers all your questions without any hassle. (trust me I asked alot) Some of the plans have a higher arch than others depending on personal preference and soil conditions. Mine is 2' 7" of vertical arch rise in the center measured from the base of arch)

Fozzy...

Awesome job. Looks great.

That first "AFTER" pic is awesome, ain't it? I want one....bad.

Bski do you even have a place to put a bridge like this or are you going to have to dig a creek channel from the pond edge outward so that you will have a reason to have one?

...there goes more of that Kook engineering. I like it!
-
Actually, we do have a draw with water in it in the zone of flooded timber. It's begging for a bridge and connecting walking trails thru the woods. I haven't taken a measurement of the span where a bridge would be placed, but I fear it's gonna be in the 40 ft range. That's a bit more than I care to take on right now....unless....we can assemble the supporting kooks for a brainstorming session.

Rocky-T,
Tell me about that stone work on the crib you designed (above). Is there a special foundation ledge required to support the weight? How does that work?

Bski I too really like these wooden bridges. But in my case I want to build a bridge across the creek in my wooded area. The span would be about 36 feet. I'm concerned that wood would not last long in my case because the trees are so thick that light does not penitrate and things tend not to dry out. Rout sets in rather quickly. If I ever get around too it I'm planning on using steel.

All of the foundations I layout have 12"W X 24"D beams. This is kook engineering in our area most builders use 9"w x18"D. The ones I layout are normally used in commerical foundations. As you know the largest load in this case is the fireplace. There is a 8ft square 4ft deep slap underneath it. This foundation was also piered for extra kooking. A 51/2" brick ledge 1-1/2 inch drop is standard for rock and brick work. With 12 inches of beam you can have 2x4 or 2x6 walls.

We're talking poured concrete grade beams with reinforcing...right? No footer.
So, basically, the piers are your footers. How many piers (on center), how large, and how deep? I assume the piers are also reinforced, including dowels at the top to tie into the grade beam...?
Did you perform soil borings to determine if the site required the additional support of the piers...or...just went ahead and added the piers, knowing the load above from the rock facade?

Brettski...

I am still new to all of the concrete work, but here is my understanding. If the soil has a high enough density to support the weight of the slab and structure, piers are not necessary. If the soil test finds that they are needed, piers and footers are used. here in Texas, most of the structures I have seen that have slabs have had the monolithic pour and the beams that go around the perimeter of the slab with no footer. We don't have to deal with frost heave down here, so it isn't part of the building code. They also often have beams that go underneath load bearing walls or some other heavy part of the structure. The rest of the slab for a house is usually 4 inches of reinforced concrete and 6 inches for a garage.

Yea what he said

Man does that look great.
Keeping the pictures and diary will be lots of fun for the next generation.

James Holt you need to send some pictures or your handy work.
Otto

DIY small projects for around the pond: picnic table & benches
Used this website plan for table and found it to be excellent-

http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/ptabl.htm

The finished project below was made from local cedar finished with spar urethane



I also wanted some park style benches using the cedar slabs I had, but the bench frames cost $185.00 ea +ship. So, I drew up some simple plans,bought the metal, bolts, paint & wood finish and made four of them for $57.00 each.






You need a chop saw and welder(or a friend with one) to do this project. I used true 2" wood, so if you use typical one and half inch thick wood the bolts can be 4" long. I tried the plastic 2x2" end caps, but they fall off, so used 2"strap & made my own 2x2" caps. The angle of the back is important, but by cutting one piece at 35 degrees, the remaining piece when turned over will get the correct 110-115 degrees for the back board. Found the benches to be comfortable and light enough(60lbs) to move easily..

Now...tell me THAT ain't what we're talkin' about!
I knew it was nice pond gear when I first saw it on the david u pond creation thread.
If you wanna see where this stuff will likely wind up, check out this post by david.

Folks Brettski ask me to post some pic of our pond project. Here goes.
http://www.myspace.com/judy5056

This is the beginning, My parents bought this property many many years ago. It was a low spot and my mother added ducks.

My parents had the pond dug out and put a levee around the back side. We had a nutria rat that dug a hole in the levee. It was repaired after my husband killed it. This pic was taken years ago when the pond was in it's heyday after the repair work.

We had a leak in the pond and for the last 4 to 5 years it was covered by FA. As you can see from the video it was completely redone. Here is a pic just days before it was filled up. We had a severe thunderstorm that filled it up in about 4 hrs.

Here are some pictures after it filled up.

This is our new runaround fence built the day before we put in our FH.