We’re making progress in the beginning of week 3. The electricians finished up wiring Monday morning and left the job site around 11 a.m. The Urban Escapes crew focused on shoring up the walls with concrete block. Unfortunately, I neglected to take photos of the bricks in the pond wall for posterity. The crew was able to get most of the wall complete Monday and only had a small section left Tuesday morning.
Tuesday was productive and we were able to start laying fabric at the end of the day. The original angle of the skimmer was not aimed at the middle of the pond, so we corrected it first thing in the morning. We also stubbed out the plumbing in the original pump housing so we can build up the walls around the housing. After that, Lino and Frankie spent the morning finishing the bricks in the wall. They also installed old carpet to help cushion the liner against the bricks. This was complete by lunch and they moved into on to the final shaping of the bottom of the pond. Frankie and I spent some time cleaning the top of the bottom drains so they would be ready when we attach them to the liner.
We also screwed the bulkhead plates to the front of the vault. There’s no way to find a bulkhead that would work with six inches of concrete. I fabricated the plates from two 1 foot square by 1/4 inch thick aluminum plates, which I painted with an epoxy-based automotive paint. Aluminum and concrete normally don’t react well together because aluminum will chemically accelerate the deterioration of concrete. To prevent this, I painted the plates and used FlexSeal on the concrete around the water return holes. This will create enough of separation that they should play nice together. I also added liberal application of silicone caulk over the FlexSeal (added protection) and attached the plates to the vault using stainless steel screws and plastic anchors.
We starting laying the liner underlayment around 2:30 p.m. and it was mostly finished by the time we wrapped up for the day. Assuming the weather holds, the EPDM liner will be in tomorrow!