Homemade waterfall spillway

[Mike C]

To make a long story short, I have a small yard and therefore have a
small very upright structure built out of stone for my waterfall. It is
very square and I put a liner behind the face layer of stone (all the
stone are large rectangles) and underneath the top layer. Rodents ate
throw the liner in way to many places to patch. Oddly enough, they
didn't touch it for 3 years.

I am thinking to avoid this problem again, I should avoid a liner and
go with a plastic spillway. Since I need to retrofit it into my
structure, I don't think any of the pre-formed ones will fit properly.
Has anyone made a homemade one? I was thinking of one of those under
bed plastic boxes or something like that. Possibly using a much bigger
container like a huge rubbermaid that I can cut down to the right
height and keep a flap for the spillway. Any other ideas are
appreciated.

[Courageous]

>I am thinking to avoid this problem again, I should avoid a liner and
>go with a plastic spillway. Since I need to retrofit it into my
>structure, I don't think any of the pre-formed ones will fit properly.
>Has anyone made a homemade one?

I haven't. However, if you are handy, you should be able to shape PVC
or some other cheap plastic sheet (hint: local plastics supply)
with a heat gun quite easily. Be sure to look up safe handling of
heated plastics before you try. Better yet, ask the plastic supply
guys; they'll know.

C//

[Koitoy]

Mike C Wrote:
> To make a long story short, I have a small yard and therefore have a
> small very upright structure built out of stone for my waterfall. It
> is
> very square and I put a liner behind the face layer of stone (all the
> stone are large rectangles) and underneath the top layer. Rodents ate
> throw the liner in way to many places to patch. Oddly enough, they
> didn't touch it for 3 years.
>
> I am thinking to avoid this problem again, I should avoid a liner and
> go with a plastic spillway. Since I need to retrofit it into my
> structure, I don't think any of the pre-formed ones will fit properly.
> Has anyone made a homemade one? I was thinking of one of those under
> bed plastic boxes or something like that. Possibly using a much
> bigger
> container like a huge rubbermaid that I can cut down to the right
> height and keep a flap for the spillway. Any other ideas are
> appreciated.


Why not make an upflow filter for your waterfall? Get a rubbermaid or
other suitable container, have the intake close to the bottom of the
box, fill with preferred filter media, then have the outake pipe 2x
bigger then the input pipe. If you connect a peice of flex pvc to the
outake pipe then you can arrange this on your waterfall rocks to make a
suitable waterfall. I would have a drain valve (bulkhead with gate
valve) for cleaning and a check valve on the intake portion. You can
also bury an uplow filter if you like but then you will probally have
to take a small pump to drain it for cleaning. Happy ponding.


--
Koitoy

[Bonnie NJ]

I used a Rubbermaid dishpan for a spillway. I cut it to fit the area and
then used silicone to glue it in place. The liner does go under the
spillway, but the cutdown dishpan gives it a lip and a nice flow.

--
Bonnie
NJ
"Mike C" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> To make a long story short, I have a small yard and therefore have a
> small very upright structure built out of stone for my waterfall. It is
> very square and I put a liner behind the face layer of stone (all the
> stone are large rectangles) and underneath the top layer. Rodents ate
> throw the liner in way to many places to patch. Oddly enough, they
> didn't touch it for 3 years.
>
> I am thinking to avoid this problem again, I should avoid a liner and
> go with a plastic spillway. Since I need to retrofit it into my
> structure, I don't think any of the pre-formed ones will fit properly.
> Has anyone made a homemade one? I was thinking of one of those under
> bed plastic boxes or something like that. Possibly using a much bigger
> container like a huge rubbermaid that I can cut down to the right
> height and keep a flap for the spillway. Any other ideas are
> appreciated.
>

[Mike C]

Thanks- that sounds like a good idea.