Pond Day1 Breaking ground

a lot of the down flow is you get a dissolved oxygen drop as it goes deeper and deeper and it becomes anoxic in the bottom and then it gets [Music] septic okay so let me ask you something do you know what good stuff manard means [Music] all right you guys a lot of you are probably not used to seeing my backyard look quite like this and are wondering what's going on this is the start of pond week so every day this week we are going to bring you a video showing you the process of what we did to build this backyard pond but we're also going to take it a bit further and talk about pricing if you are a DIY guy and you've always wondered about installing a pond in your backyard by the time you're done with this series we're going to show you everything from the dig to the liner install to the filtration system to every component of this if you're a contractor you're not only going to learn how to do a project like this from one of the very best in the entire world Ed the pond Professor but in one of the videos we're also going to break down what a project like this would cost we're going to bring you a video every single day this week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and even Saturday and show you every single detail from taking this from a flat backyard to a finished installed Pond filled with life so without wasting any more time let's bring you back to day one and start off Pond week the right way I hope you guys enjoy this series let's get her started guys I want to introduce Ed the pond Professor Ed how long have you been building ponds 31 years 31 years so Ed and I have been building ponds about the same amount of time I actually start my very first job was a pond no way yes very that's awesome but I built completely different ponds and I waited a year for Ed I waited a year just for this guy because it takes someone that knows how to do something to recognize somebody that knows how to do something better than anybody else in the world world and AD I consider to be the absolute best Pond installer that I've ever met or seen anywhere so if you ever have a chance to get this guy to come to your site even if you have to wait a year it's worth it now Ed is followed up by the most amazing team of people that I've ever known think of it this way if you've ever watched old school Star Trek yep captain Kirk is Greg meet Mr Spock perfect is that right that's it right and then there's Sulu Scotty and everybody else s Brian you guys are the Star Trek team I mean and this is Spock this dude is brilliant hands down I am so pumped and I'm bringing you guys along for the R so you guys are going to get to see how ad works and what we are building is going to be a very naturalis swim pond yep it's a very big project it is it's a very very big project yeah yeah I mean you did calculations how many yards of soil you say well we're taking 51 yards out of the swim pond and 64 yards out of the filtration area yeah so yeah you got multiple four four or five semi- trcks of soil generate you actually invented the filtration method that we're going to be using on this and I'm going to break it down a little bit for these guys if you ever had an aquarium and you ever had an underg grav a filter now think of that but reverse flow it reverse yeah and the reason we did the reverse flow um was because that filter bed is a living breathing colony of microorganisms we want to have high dissolved oxygen going through so the problem with a lot of the down flow is you get a dissolved oxygen drop as it goes deeper and deeper and it becomes a noxic in the bottom and then it gets septic so ours is the exact opposite we have high oxygen on the bottom and then as it gets up closer to the top you're actually closer to the surface where where everything's going to be happening where you have natural ation so we have good oxygen flow going through so the water will actually come underneath the gravel bed and percolate up and through correct and then this week it's just us just us you got it's just me Ed and Zach behind the camera and what we're going to do is we're going to do the work before the real work begins yeah what I want to try to do is get some of that infrastructure taken care of so everything goes more efficiently so you're familiar everything with construction trades right so it's I don't want to bring a massive team in place and not have people being productive let's go inside and let's show these guys what we're going to build they always go inside of the house and look at the main focal point because they want customers to be able to enjoy that thing even when they're sitting inside watching TV right so you always start inside absolutely we always start inside because you do you spend the majority of your time I mean here the Upper Midwest you know we get we get cold we get snow we get we get rain we're going to be sitting in the house having coffee in the morning but we still want to have that lakefront property and Lakefront view because that's what I love about this is it not only looks good but it is has different recreational qualities sitting outside by the fire so we we want to have visibility from inside we want to have just an expanse of open water coming through here we also want to have a flow we call ourselves the pond guys but in my opinion we almost create more river systems because we have a flow that goes from one side to the other and the reason we do that is cuz we're going to get better water quality shallow water on the one side deep water on the other now the challenge that we have here is um your property slopes yep which is very typical um so what we want to do is we want to we want to try to sight balance everything we're going to start digging we start building up over on the other side you have access for power over here on the barn so we'll have our pump located on that back corner so that way when everything's operational we have water being discharged here it's going to flow through under your Bridge cut across and make its way back into the uh customized skimmer system then it's going to repeat the cycle mhm wash rinse and repeat that's it we've got a dual system one that never shuts off correct and then another one that just allows us to feel the you know a little bit of a kick exactly so we will have a dual pump system I like doing that especially when we start getting into pounds of this scale because if if it's mechanical something's going to happen it's just inevitable you're going to have a pump go down so that way if we have two of the pumps are exactly the same so if one of them goes down the other one could take the place of it so we can kind of play back and forth with that that same secondary pump is also going to have some um underwater Jets so that'll help to push sediment over to our uh pre-filter area what's the next thing we're going to do so next thing what we're going to do is we're going to start kind of laying out some of the shapes here um actually I think in my notebook I have a couple sketches that I did on our previous visit I know you did some recent work so we're going to flop stuff around a little bit but negligible you did find though some interesting stuff underground which we always need to address anytime we're doing excavation you know any type of underground work even if it's a plant in a tree you want to know what's underground um so I'm thankfully you said right away hey we may have a potential issue uh so that is our issue and of course course it's going right right where we got to go but we on what was it Friday Zach Friday we abandon this okay so we pulled this all apart took everything apart we still got to be careful doing the excavation cuz I can't rip it out yep but I can cut it and circumvent it and it that way it doesn't become an issue and it won't hold up productivity yeah and we're probably not going too much past that point that point yeah this is where we ended it I'm like yeah I don't really think we're going to cuz we want to have uh you know for your dogs and everything we want to have some Turf area still we don't want to take up everything we want to create a dramatic water feature but we still have to be conscious of some of these other things so right where wherever we want that bridge if it's going to be 8 10t or something like that so everything we have this big filter bed and it's going to kind of come through a little funnel um and then what we want to do is I want to have that output um I would almost like to kind of push it a little bit of an angle because close to the home we want to make sure that we're sweeping you don't have any floating debris or anything so we'll have the output of this uh filter system going towards the home and then it's going to kind of make a hard turn back to the pump so that way we're really kind of we want to utilize as much of that water flow as possible all right so we started what two two and a half hours ago yeah okay y so we're going to be doing just the mass excavation getting every the Contour set so we know what we're up against exactly so yeah we just want to make sure you know when doing any type of a water feature we have the water level we have to work off of the target's 5 ft in depth but uh because your your property pitches and slopes all over the place we got to dig we got to cut we got to fill and we got to go around with a laser level make sure everything's nice and dialed in it's not like we're doing a retaining wall where we have to be within a half an inch but we still we we need to have things relatively where we need them in order for from a functional standpoint where the pumps are going to be located and things like that and so right now it's going a little bit it it's very very rough and then we'll start tightening it up as we move along the better we can do that it'll make our life easier on the back end once we start putting those Boulders in place so tomorrow we'll just be digging yep okay if we were going to divide this into this job into components what would those components be at so we have the the main Pond itself so that open water Zone we'll just call it uh that's going to be loaded up with all those big boulders and and connected with that we have the pump pre-filter section so that's all part of the same piece then we're going to have plumbing and piping um then we're going to have our main filtration system then we're going to have the edge treatments and waterfalls that's it so we have basically like five different main chunks main chunks yeah yeah of the project and then finish grading and clean up and whatnot well this is two hours into chunk one tomorrow tomorrow we continue chunk one yeah you got it that's the big one we're going to keep d you guys so stay stick around good morning one and all it's the start of day two I got the machine fired up I'm just waiting for Zach and Ed to get here but uh it's just going to be setting Contours we've got so many shelves and edges because as we build these Boulders up we've got to have someplace for these things to rest so all we're going to be doing is prep work uh just trying to get everything physically so that we can see how it's going to look when we start to finally get to the end stage where we're actually able to place Boulders and put matting in and put do all the other work that goes with it so let's keep digging and keep going and I hope you have a good day hope you're enjoying this video series so I'm actually building a 3 to1 [Music] slope but this doesn't look 3 to one yeah little steeper slope than we were thinking it it is almost thinking we got to pop some bus in there which we could do yeah especially right right there this is fine here yeah but yeah right there that looks a a little tight isn't it it is want going to go pick a couple pick whatever you want at want to bring shuffle them in Zach and we could yeah could you lift this corner it's kind of skinny and put it like right here and then it'll kind of angle it down a little bit it'll follow we got an we have a this rock has a slope to it so it should just slide right in there what I noticed about working with Ed is he doesn't marry a boulder he flips it spins it spanks it pops it in place and calls it good and if it's not he moves on little bit further over down you got to go that way like 3 more Ines right there he's learned how to read the Rocks which means he spends the least amount of time possible to increase his productivity while still getting the results he's searching for let me throw a little soil under there or does push it before we can start installing the pond we have to build a retaining wall to support the infrastructure yep could you push the whole thing up that way from down here just push it closer to that rock little bit more I'm good [Music] I've always Built My retaining walls with a thumb or a grapple but after working with the aquacap boys I am now 100% thoroughly convinced that you do not use a thumb or grapple to build ponds you use a strap and I'm going to show you why in a minute right here coming up this Boulder completely escaped the ground grapple and roll directly into my door now it didn't cause a whole lot of damage but inside of a pond where there's a liner if you rupture that liner and when a stone gets away you can start all over again and with straps the process is so much more controlled but I don't learn that until a little bit later on in this project [Music] he [Music] a railroad TI nope I don't know what it is it was in the bottom of the pond how did it get there is it an old block and tackle something got that looks like a piece of angle or ey iron in it that's for sure I don't know what the heck looks like it was like that power wash it off I'm not that in love with it unless you want to keep it for your rora things here's your daily bonus Zach [Music] go for the Run good morning one and all it is the start of day three and this is where we left her at yesterday we've got the general Contour set but we can only build from the inside so we got to build over our work Zone which makes the build incredibly difficult that fence we're not able to take down since that fence is buried 2 feet deep uh and it's all linked together otherwise we take that section of the fence down and come around and build from the outside in we got a build From the Inside Out absolutely bass Awards not the end of the world just a lot more difficult than typical build uh this is the last day of this week that we'll have Ed he's taken off and he's coming back next week and we're going to pause the project while he's gone and the reason I say we're pausing it is because next week we're going to have a lot of contractors coming in and they're going to share their experiences how they build ponds and they're going to learn turn from each other cuz a rising tide raises All Ships I think that's actually uh Greg wit Sox's one of his sayings that he says all the time and it is so true when we all help each other out we all benefit it's just it's the truth so today we're going to just see how this goes and uh crawl our wave down into our pond and start building and working over our Zone let's just see how it goes power cooking with Chrisco don't in front of it you'll get flat Zach wouldn't know what that means but I'm guessing you know what it means I know what okay so let me ask you something do you know what good stuff manard means uh I yeah good stuff Maynard what was that from though yeah I do I know what it's from I don't remember uh cuz I had a Ed John John Ed I'm quizzing I'm quizzing Ed I do but I'm good stuff maner stuff mayard do you know what good stuff Maynard is from yeah I I used to say it back in the 80s good stuff Maynard what is it actually from where did it originate from I had a kid in high school his name was mayor so that's screwing you up do you know Zach I is it from cars no this this was 80s way when you guys want to know I'll let you know was it was it the guy with mayonnaise close but no close Wonderbread no you're on the right track though he's thinking food y That's your first clue yep good stuff mayard it's it's not Mikey no it would be it would be it would be breakfast I oh was it like a it's like a a hot y breakfast cereal type thing Cream of Wheat Malto meal Malto good stuff mayard we didn't have Malto meal we hadina that's what the rich folk ate so we have the worst soil of course worst soil tight site you know just a every every typical one of my jobs so we have to put in a sand cushion we had sand just recently delivered and we're going to lay he this how much say on Dad 16 yards or 16 ton what did you get oh on the bottom inch and a half inch and a half inch and a half inch and a half of sand but thanks for telling me how much sand I had delivered at ah yeah cuz yeah cuz we're pulling crap like that out so I'm going to start laying it in these guys are going to start cutting fabric you've seen enough dirt work why don't you go watch them cut fabric Zach take it away buddy all right then we need what two of these Ed uh the next we might we're going to need at least two all right let's see if we could uh carry that in um I'm trying to think yeah you want to cut another one at 40 or you lay this one out or you need no I I got it I'll roll it back up roll it down and you get another one going go from there and bring it you're right [Music] because we have really terrible soil I mean we are pulling stuff like that weird hitch block iron thing out of the ground we have to take extra special precautions so we're putting a sand cushion in then we're putting fabric down heavy duty Boulder fabric then the liner then another layer of fabric over the top of that [Music] and that culbert you see at the bottom is not to drain the pond that's actually an underwater cave that I wanted to install in case I ever put in big catfish and I wanted to go noodling n in is a a sport where you dive underwater and you grab a big catfish and you pull it out with your bare hands well now I can do it in my backyard [Music] w guys I'm going to take you along for the complete install but this is going to be a series of videos that we bring to you back to back to back so you don't miss any of the action but make sure you subscribe and come back for more cuz I promise you there is