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From Fail to Fountain: Things to Consider when Building a Water Feature

This is the story of our fail and how we turned it into a water feature. This isn’t the sort of story I wanted to have to write.  I hate fails.  Let me back up.  I love reading about funny Pinterest fails—they crack me up.  But when it’s your fail, when you’re personally involved, there’s this moment when hope is dashed and you cry.  Only after, can you laugh and pull on your waders because, we may get dirty, but we get it done.

Our front yard was suddenly not symmetrical.  On either side of the driveway was a cinderblock wall framing a cascading wall of large rocks.  Where there was dirt, we planted shrubs and hoped for the best.  About three years after planting, we began to notice that the plants on the left side of the house were growing bigger in one area.  Perplexing, but not concerning, until we also noticed an unpleasant smell emanating from the plants.

I remember telling Kevin, “I think that the plant roots are rotten or something because it stinks in the front yard.”

He was skeptical.  “I’ve never heard of rotting roots,” he said, smirking.  “What’s it smell like?”

I thought for a minute.  “Poop.”

When he frowned and said, “which side of the yard, the left?” I knew we were in trouble.

I nodded, “Why, is that a problem?”

“I’m not sure, but the sewer pipe runs from the street up the left side yard.”

We both looked at each other in silence.  We had been through the pooper with a septic-pipe-problem years before, in Wyoming.  Our new house had settled, the foundation pulling the septic tank pipe away from the house, sending all the septic waste back into the house.  I discovered it while doing the laundry.  When the washer drained, the soapy water came spewing up out of the toilet.  That fix required digging out a huge chunk of our yard and disposing of all the contaminated dirt. We had to wait for the next summer for the yard to completely dry out and stop smelling.

This couldn’t happen to us twice—right?  Wrong.  We were two-time losers.  Upon investigation, the sewer pipe had broken off where it attached to the main.  The difference is that this time, the waste had been pouring into the ground for a while, but we hadn’t noticed it because there was a lot of real estate under our yard for the sludge to dump into. 

Enter the excavator and Kevin’s helpful friends.  As they started digging, the stench began to rise, followed by the toilet jokes.  It was bad.  We were going to be pulling out a huge load of contaminated dirt again.  I don’t know where the saying, “Dirt Cheap” comes from but fill dirt ain’t cheap.  Know what else isn’t cheap?  Replacing part of your driveway.  Arrgghh!  The joys of home ownership.

I had to post this picture of Kevin, in his waders, digging with a shovel in a huge hole that had contained poop filled dirt.  Imagine the smell.  He swore that it was impossible to wash off.  This is the kind of digging required to re-attach the pipe.  Actually, a foot-long piece of pipe was completely missing.  Did the poop eat it?  I have my suspicions.  We couldn’t re-attach until we added new pipe.

After the repair, I remember standing in the street looking at the hole where our front yard used to be.  We could have filled in the hole with some new dirt, replanted and restacked our block retaining wall, but where would the fun be in that?  We’ve never been comfortable with the status quo.

The idea for a cascading water feature came to me in a dream.  Just kidding.  The idea came because we had always wanted a rushing waterfall, but didn’t want to dig up the yard to get it.  Now that the yard had been demolished, we were ready for the water feature.

The water feature build was a lot of trial and error.  That’s the trade-off that comes with being a do-it-yourself couple.  I loved that it looks like it could almost have been a natural runoff, but some people didn’t. We made sure that the pump and drop created a loud, rushing river sound—some people liked that and some didn’t.  It’s impossible to please everyone—including yourself.  I’m famous for wishing I had been a better designer after the project is complete.

For all the things I love about the water feature, there are things we would have done differently, and issues that we couldn’t see ahead of time.  If you’re considering building your own water feature, here are some things to think about.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE BUILDING A WATER FEATURE

• The sound of a waterfall is based on pump size, water source size, and drop.  You’ll never get a river-like sound with a shallow pond.  Plan accordingly.
• The hardest part of building a water feature is waterproofing. Test, test, test.  Put a hose at the top of the water feature and run water through the system multiple times.  Make sure your liner doesn’t have any low spots, or areas where the water naturally runs off the liner.  The test run water must be completely contained by your liner before you even think about adding cement to hold it all in place.
• Our pond should have been deeper. The pump functions more efficiently when you place it at the bottom of the pond, under a grate.  We didn’t have the depth to use a grate without it being visible, so our pump is more likely to get clogged with a random leaf.  Build deep enough to cover your pump with a grate.
• Once your structure is built and waterproof, cement it in place. The cement on the sides of the water feature will keep everything from sliding.  You can hide the cement by placing large rocks in it.  Water attracts kids, so you don’t want anything moving.
• Don’t forget to install a way to refill the pond. Water evaporates, and your pond level will decrease over time.  We did ours the cheap way, using a sprinkler drip line to refill the pond each time the sprinkler cycle runs.  It works well, but you will have to monitor water levels and occasionally refill by hand.  The better method is to install a float that will keep the pond at the proper level automatically—just like a swimming pool.  The downside, is that you will need to run a water line off the house somewhere to install the float.

Let us know if you have any questions about how to create a water feature.  If you have your sewer pipe break, then you have our sympathy.  I’d loan you waders, but we threw them out.