Hi Theo, Rockytopper, and the "other Jeff". (Or I guess that's me..!)
Theo, on the watershed question, there is a certain amount of rainwater that occurs naturally, but I would not judge this to be significant. I've been there during some pretty good rainfalls and haven't noticed much water running into the pond. Uphill from it is a grassy area, with the spring and cistern coming after that, about 100 feet above (and 6-8 feet higher than) the pond. Incidentally, I plan to create a beach area on the upper end of the pond that slopes gradually into the water until it reaches a retaining wall at about 3 foot depth, which I'll create using landscaping blocks. (In ancient times I used to be a mason.) I want a 2-3 foot dropoff on the other side of this wall, and I'll string a line across the pond at that point with some floats like you'd see in a swimming pool. If I can figure out how to upload a .jpg I'll do a rough drawing. I'm guessing I'll have to drain a few feet of water each spring to rake out the "beach area", so I've been reading up on a few installations where a secondary drain was added for maintenance.
Rocky, ya got me - I'm not sure what the difference is. I've been looking at diagrams such as this:
Conventional System, plus I've been reading what several others have done and looking at the pictures. In particular I noted one installation that used an 8 inch riser with a 6 inch drainpipe, all PVC, where the pertinant info seemed consistent with mine.
I'm going to try to get up there (we live 200 miles away, in MD) in the next 8-10 days and take some pictures and measure the water flow. Prior to coming across this site I've mainly been trying like all getout (since last year) to find somebody to do the work. The guy I've finally found runs an excavating business and has put in many ponds and had good references, but he's asked me to obtain the drainpipes. Once I have more accurate information I'll repost along with the pictures.
- Jeff
