Hi Littlestfish,
Enjoyed reading about your experiences overcoming leaks.
I noted in one of your posts you are planning routing roof water to your pond. I did this very thing when we built our house next to our pond. It just seemed like the right thing to do especially as I was concerned I may be short on runoff water.
I did it in two ways: 1) Buried 4 inch drain tile and ran the gutter down spouts into the tile and to the pond.
2) sloped the ground in such a way to catch additional roof runoff and channeled it to the pond.
The first summer I was able to get a good crop of grass growing after completing the drain work. Winter came and being in a midwestern climate we enjoyed using our fireplace and wood stove. Both have roof mounted chimneys.
Well next summer after numerous rains the grass along the drainage channel from roof to pond died. This got me worried I may again have done the wrong thing.
Right now we are in a fast snow melt and water is still draining from my roof to the pond. I have observed brown stained water on the ice in the areas the drains enter - Could this be creosote??
Another potential issue with using roof water direct to the pond is PH. I checked some rain water from our rain gage and the ph was very low (don't remember the values but remember being supprised). If you have any low PH concerns (mine usually is around 6.8 - 7.2 and occasionally 6.2 to a max of 7.4 one time) this may be another issue.
I'm now temporarily rerouting the down spout water.
