Over the past week I’ve ramped up the work pace to really get this project moving. Concrete was done last Sunday. The top edge is pretty close to level all the way around now. That solves one of the biggest problems I always had with it. I could never get it filled clear up to the top due to leakage around the edge somewhere. It’s built into a gradual downslope, so that always became an issue at 2 or 3 problem spots and caused the water level to be lower than I wanted.
The fountain pedestal was problematic. I’m no professional mason, but finally managed to get it shaped, polished and sealed in an acceptable fashion. You can also see how I did the ingress points for water return and electric in the next 2 pics:
There are a total of 12 ingress points through the liner. I still need to fabricate a backing grommet for the fountain bottom. The little ones (shown below) are made from PVC dowels to accept stainless screws and screw-eyes. They will be used to fasten floating plants, lights and to control lettuce and duckweed or whatever else ends up in there:
Here’s another pic showing a better view of the water return line:
I’ve had the sump/filter running in test mode for the past couple of weeks, and it seems to be operating as expected. The filter is made up of 63 wiffle balls covered with 2 bags of polyfill. This is actually a low-budget project, believe it or not. The biggest expense so far was about $100 worth of Quickrete. I got the poly drum for $10 from my methanol supplier. I think I’ll use 3 bags of poylfill next time, but it seems adequate with 2 for now. Bird netting separates the polyfill from the top layer of rocks. The landscape blocks around the sump edge are just holding up the liner for now, and I’ll get that properly finished at some point.
Where the water falls out to the sump here will be covered after the top is finished with flagstone all around:
Depth in the middle ends up being about 4 feet. Liner goes in today.