Installing a Pond Start to Finish in 1 day

all right you guys today we got a pretty special of a video coming up we're collaborating with team aquascape and we're going to be doing a 8 by 11 pond install with as much detail as i can possibly give you to help you guys maybe do this on your own so without wasting any more time let's get into it but yeah if you want to do something over yeah exactly where you want to go with it you want to do it right here huh it's kind of painted yeah we'll find out see so final falls good morning stan good morning tim what's up stan hey hi chris hey guys how are you doing good to see you again likewise always a pleasure so how big is the pond gonna be eight by eleven so let's look at our tools today basically we're just going to be using a lot of hand tools we've got shovels we're going to be using a laser as well [Music] so since this is a collaboration with team aquascape we have both the dirt monkey crew and the aquascape crew working in the same space typically we would only have three four maybe five guys tops working on a project like this [Music] hey chris can you tell me what that rule is you were just explaining to us about spreading out the dirt because the three-foot rule yeah what is what is that so um you know we're always preaching to have these things have our water features look as natural as possible and in order to help prevent that that volcanic look that we so often see in crummier looking water features is because all of the dirt that supports the rock and liner is non-existent so we like to use the dirt that we're using through excavation and throw it up um sorry throw it up on the outsides of the the rock and liner and then really fan that berm out um we have what we call a three foot rule whereas if you have your rocks and liner and you are putting dirt up on the backside to hold that liner up you want that dirt to come out at least three feet horizontally from the top of the rock which would be the top of my hand and then the dirt's gonna come out three feet and it either slowly tapers or there's another rack here to stock the dirt and then you can tear us down but we want that three feet um it's kind of a general rule of thumb in order to prevent that volcanic look is there any advantage instead of digging this out by hand to using an excavator or a big piece of equipment on this size advantage uh no it would be a disadvantage so bringing in a machine on a project this size would be i think a little bit overkill um you know you'll have damage to the yard you'll have cleanup and stuff like that taking three four buckets out of here there would be a lot of rebuilding of these shelves that are cut and carved to a specific depth and height so i think stanley you're at a perfect rate four to five people on a project this size less mess more efficient and a machine just simply isn't needed even if you got it sitting at the shop man keep it at the shop you'll be more efficient with your four or five man crew here okay so then when do you bring in a piece of equipment your four or five person crew should be able to by the time you hit your fourth or fifth pond you should be able to get an 11 by 16 pond dug line rocked and filling by lunchtime that's what we call a one day pond a machine should come in when you're at about 400 square foot ponds so 11 by 16 is 176 square feet of 400 square foot ponds like a 20 by 20. this is the this is the point where i'm supposed to set the water table and this has got to be close to grade is this about right then that's a good eyeball check right there what i would like to do is have chris hansen he has all the numbers with the transit level okay let's put a dry stick let's put a stick on that watermark you just pointed out and we'll see i gotta go down about two inches what's that say yeah you see about two inches there stanley oh i don't know i wasn't looking like geez i gotta go down four yeah four inches technically about three and a half about three and a half all right let's check that out but hey when i go down with this chris am i making sure that my my skimmer is level side to side and front to back that is correct side to side front back which is slightly different than your biological filter that we had slinging slightly forward this is the geotextile underlayment this is going to give a little bit of padding underneath that liner it'll help distribute the weight as well because the liner will stretch this in fact will not it'll help distribute the weight so if you have a rock that's point loaded on the liner this will help spread that weight out and prevent that liner from really stretching i would think you'd want something heavier duty than that if we're worried about point loading of a rock on the liner we do have we do have we do have um a much thicker underlayment called rock pad but on a project this size where we have rocks that are max 18 inches 150 pounds it's just simply not necessary out here unless you have a very um like rocky aggregate sub base underneath the liner okay is there a right side and the wrong side to this liner there is not okay unless you're playing a joke on a new guy that would be a great time tim to get the gravel over here because we're going to use that to backfill as we're rocking into the bottom section this is our first aquascape pond which is a lot different than the projects we're used to working with we've done a lot of ponds but on a really massive scale we did the african hoofed animal exhibit at the minnesota zoo which was a five acre pond using dozers and excavators this pond only requires hand shovels but we were able to work some heavy equipment into it now oddly enough you would think if you're digging a pond you probably have some excavation spoils to haul off site but the exact opposite is the truth you use all of your excavation spoils to build out and flesh out the waterfall and sometimes you may need to import some extra dirt so that you get a very natural feel to that waterfall and that's exactly what we're doing in this case is just bringing in a little bit of extra soil so we can really flesh out that waterfall and make it feel right now what you're seeing here is a combination of the dirt monkey crew working with the team from aquascape together normally on a project this size you would only have three or four guys max so this is a lot of overkill but this is also helping us dial in and understand the process from stem to stern [Music] now earlier in the video you may have remembered hearing chris say that you only need shovels you don't need excavators and skid loaders to do a pond like this and the team from aquascape rarely ever uses big equipment but since the dirt monkey team has big equipment and we love playing in big equipment we also love playing with big rocks and so if we have an opportunity to bring in our equipment and pop some bigger boulders in there and make it a more dramatic feeling we're gonna go for it and while the guys are playing with their stones i'm gonna take the dump trailer and run and pick up some mulch all right so while the guys are back there getting the pond install done we're going to run we're at guertin's right now and pick up three yards we're going to use what's called cypress mulch howdy hello do you guys have slippers mulch uh yes we do i'm gonna take care of this then i'll get right back to you guys cypress it cyprus or cyprus three yards of that stuff right there take your best guess yes i did screw up why am i so happy i'm not happy but at least i get to show you guys that chain has to stay in effect and there's a reason why because when we look underneath here the control for the dump trailer sits right down in here and as you're driving it could rattle and bump a thing and then it could go up and you could be driving down the road and not realize the back of your trailer is going sky high until you meet a bridge that's never fun and there's the one yard bucket if you're gonna guess 279 dollars you would have guessed right with three yards so you see he's digging in the middle of the pile that's nice hear that sound that is the modern day backup alarm this was not quite as annoying as it used to be all right i'm gonna grab this and i'm gonna head back to tim's so let's cut to that next [Music] what time is it it's five o'clock and we started at it's about 7 30 8 o'clock out here we'll show you where we're at so the pond itself would this be about a 12 to 16 thousand dollar water feature the pond by itself yeah we're looking at probably somewhere i think you're right on the money um in that 12 to 15 000 price range and that is just upon the rocks the water the pumps the installation correct okay yep not the mulch not the plants not the mulch not the plants okay yep to give this project a finished look we added a few signature plants in the backdrop plus we put in some low evergreen shrubs in the forefront and we're also going to be putting in some aquatic vegetation as well do you happen to live around the twin cities in minnesota and want us to take a look at installing one of these for you well the best way to reach us is just to text him he's at 612-715-3637 give him a text and he'll get right back to you yeah i hope you guys enjoy this one god bless go get him you guys