Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Flooded and Jammed!

Glad you got it, I was afraid to even offer a suggestion. Dangerous stuff.

Glad you got it out safely! I didn't have any ideas for you and was kinda holding my breath reading this thread. I've witnessed the suction through the vent on my siphon and it's no joke.

But now that everything's OK, tell us the rest of the story... where did that darn thing come from anyway? I just checked and didn't see any near my pond. Was it an inocent accident, or was it some sort of... SABOTOGE??

(feel free to check my spelling on that French word there)

Crack a cold one on that!

vamaz, It was SABOTAGE! Unfortunately it was my own. I knew that tote was out there and I knew what it was when I felt it with my feet. It blew in 5-6 weeks ago during a strong wind storm. My procrastination cost me this time.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the dock back down. It has actually been like that for a couple of years from a previous flood, just not this extreme. The worst piling is 30' out from the bank and pulled up probably 18". Used to be 8-9". What I keep coming back to is hiring an excavator with an extreme reach to push it back down.

Thought of many custom techniques over the past couple of years and a million ways I could have prevented it when I built it. Just haven't made a final decision. They all suck or cost a lot of money or both.

Any suggestions?

Do you have any pics of the dock when it isnt covered in wet stuff?

I don't think that the dock will stay put by just ramming it down with a backhoe or whatever, especially in a high water situation.

This might be stupid, but can you weigh it down?

I was thinking the same thing. Instead of hiring somebody to push down with an excavator, just keep bringing more weight out there until it would do the same thing. I don't see how it would stay down long term. Possibly drive another post next to it and tie into it? How about slipping a floating barrel underneath and securing it somehow?

Ps.- Sure glad you didn't get hurt. I don't think I would have even got in the water next to it, let alone try to physically reach in.

We had one of those 500 year rain events one summer, and the deluge washed a stick of firewood into the big lake. When I went to check on the dams, I found the 18" horizontal overflow plugged with debris, including the firewood. Water was pouring over the emergency spillway..... not bad yet, but it was still raining cats and dogs.

I thought I knew better than to get in the water to try and remove the blockage, so I stripped to my shorts and straddled the submerged pipe, and was attempting to reach down with just my arms, rather than having the greater mass of my body in front of the opening. I had to work by feel, with my head underwater and my chin resting on top of the pipe.

I cleared some of the smaller debris, and the stick suddenly came loose and shot down the pipe. I didn't pull it loose, it just came loose on its own. The force of the water grabbed my arms and pulled me over the pipe in a somersault....luckily, I went over at an angle, rather than directly in front of the opening, and I was able to get further off to the side and climb out.

It was over in a few seconds, and I didn't actually get scared until after the fact. I was there alone, and didn't have a phone, not that I could've used one to call for help anyway. Had things been just a little different, I have no doubt I would've drowned.

In Virigina, a man was trying to unstop his 5 ft. drainpipe in a paddleboat. He did break the jam just in time to take a quick boat ride through pipe as wivey was watching. He wasn't hurt very much but said he would rethink his theory of pipe cleaning.

Sunil, The original problem was that the emergency spillway was too high. The level was set to protect the house but not the dock. I deepened the ESW 18 months ago to account for that. With the two spillways working together, major rain events could then quickly flow through without flooding the dock too much.

As long as I can keep the main spillway open, floods like this don't happen anymore. The cause of the flooding has been addressed so I think that I am ready for dock repair.

I thought of attaching a support for a 55 gallon drum (or two) on the piling then filling it with water but it's going to take a lot of weight for a long time to push those blunt 12" diameter telephone poles back down.

Yeah, when they're water-logged is one thing. When they're dry...good luck.

I wonder if that guys name is.. Stupid Numbnuts

What an idiot

BK, that story truly could have been any one of us!

If you can rent or borrow a 2" (or you may need a 3" for a really big pole) gasoline powered water pump (note sometimes you local VFD will have one of these). You can get a suction or pickup hose (something that will not collapse to cut the water off) long enough to draw water and let the pump stay out of your way and a disharge hose long enough to reach the end of your pier. You can take a 3/4" metal water pipe long enough to reach the bottom of your post. Put a elbow and a connection on one end for the discharge hose to connect to. On the other end you can put a reducer or even hammer flatten the end to creat a pressure water jet. You can run this around the bottom of your post and blow away the dirt to allow the post to settle back down. You can steer the post buy using the water jet at different angles to blow the hole in a direction if the post is no longer a straight vertical. When you get the post back to where you want it you can use a 6" pvc pipe to pour sack create into it to direct it around the piling to help it set. Here is you a link on Wikihow that explains how to do something similar to what I am talking about. Hope this helps you some.
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Posts-in-the-Water-for-a-Dock-or-Pier

I'm glad someone else said it...I can see myself in my kayak trying the same thing.

Yeah Stupid Numbnuts was my original idea for a screen name lol..

BGK. As my Daddy liked to say. "Better to be thought a Stupid Numbnuts than to text and remove all doubts".

I dunno, sounds kinda fun taking a tour through a pipe... have done it before intentionally but without the kayak. Friends and I were having a bit of fun on a hot summer day in a flooded culvert. It was a blast!

I've paddled my whitewater kayak through some on creeks where there was no other passage. Talk about hoping you don't run into a logjam!

Once while Winter kayaking, we left our truck at the take-out point, and drove another truck with our boats to the put-in. About half way down the creek, we hit a very long ice-jam and frozen over section of the creek (no ice anywhere else). We were fortunate to find a ride to the take-out truck so we could retrieve it and load up the canoes and head home. Too old (or soft) to go Winter kayaking these days.

I haven't been out in a few years at any time of the year, but would love to find some time this year to get back in a boat. One of my last winter paddling trips was on a neat little class III-IV run here and it was so cold that after hitting a wave or hole, the water was instantly freezing on us. By the time we got to the takeout, I easily had a 1/2" of ice on my helmet and my PFD was pretty well frozen on to me. That was a fun day!

I am definatly too old for that!