BUILDING FOUNTAINS AND PONDS - Fountain
and Garden Pools 7
A small motor and pump are adequate
for small fountains such as
are illustrated in this chapter. If the
water can be kept free of sus-
pended grit, a gear pump which is an
inexpensive kind should give
satisfactory service. The pump is usually
switched on only when
persons are in the garden. The piping
is arranged so that the pump draws water
from the lowest basin, or from a few
inches above the
bottom of the pool, and delivers it to
the highest basin, or to the
fountain nozzle. The pump should be installed
near the fountain
or pool so as to avoid the substantial
friction loss which occurs in
long pipes. Small flows in a fountain
usually
require that the lips of each basin be
ground down to exact level in
order to cause an even distribution of
the flow over the whole width
of the lips. The grinding can be done
with a carborundum block.
A pool outlined with stakes and plywood
strips of squares or oblongs can be marked
off with a carpenter's steel square.
Large pools of these shapes may require
the use of the large
square used for laying out building sites.
Stakes and
lines are adequate for marking the positions
of pools of these shapes.
In order to keep the stakes and lines
out of the way until the excava-
tion is done, it is well to keep them
back a foot on each side and to
use a marked stick to find the actual
boundaries whenever necessary
when the work is going on.
No matter how complex the shape of a curved pool is,
the shape
is always made up of a number of simple curves. Curves
such as these can be marked out with a stake and
a rope in the same way as has been described for driveway
curves.
After the arcs of the curves have been marked on the
soil,
the perimeter of the pool should be outlined with strips
of plywood
again using a connection with
driveways. The stakes should be long enough so that
they will
penetrate the soil 6 in. to a foot below the bottom
of the excavation.
They should be set rather closely together and on the
inside of the
pool perimeter. The excavation is made large enough
so that the
masonry work can be done on the outside of the plywood
and
the coping stones which finish off the pool laid against
the plywood.
The relationships of the plywood, stakes, and edge
of the completed
excavation. For the building of a stone rim for
the pool. If the rim is to be made of concrete and
the soil stands
firmly, the plywood is extended all the way down and
used as a
form.
In open, well-drained soils the excavation should be
made as
deep as is required by the pool masonry and no deeper.
Roots and
any other organic matter in the bottom of the excavation
should be
removed. Projecting stones should be broken off or
taken out. If
a hole of some depth is made when removing a root or
a stone, it
should be filled with well-tamped soil or gravel.
|
