3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

Rob,

I also read your thread all the time. I know you have a water tank for firefighting, but you can not ever have a too much water when fighting a fire!

Since you are building a pond and you live in an area with no fire hydrants, you may want to consider installing a dry hydrant for the fire department to draw water from the pond. Here is a web site that give you details.

Dry Hydrants

Hi Tom,
Great to hear from you and thank for that link.
Yes, you are right that we sure could use another body of water for fire fighting and other emergencies. You can see how hot and dry it gets in the Summer around here. I didn't even know there was such a thing a s a "Dry Hydrant" so that is really cool to know. However, after thinking about it, it is exactly what we have know with our 5,000 gallon water tank. It's not pressurized either.
When we build our pond, I'll try to get a system in there like that. Since the pond will be lower than the home (about 30 feet), is there consideration to prime that line for their suction requirements?

 

[3RRL]

Rob, are you and Loretta going to work in tandem to build the pond? You dig and she moves the dirt. Mark and I have done this before and things go a lot faster. Or did you go down the hill and buy that D8? Should I get Mark to haul up my 7520 and the dozer? I bet with all of us going at it we could get that thing done in short order. But then you would get less seat time, and that may not be a good thing. It would be cool though to have a video of 3-4 tractors building it. I wonder how long it would actually take.

Hi Brian old buddy,
Thanks for the fantastic offer.
I know you and Mark would be up here in a jiffy if I took you up on your offer. You guys are great. And no, I didn't buy that D-8, it's just out of our budget pretty much like everything is.

This is going to be one of our "fun" projects where we'll be taking our time from the "have to do" projects.
Loretta and I will be working together on both tractors just as you guessed. We'd like to get some of the trees out and sides of the gulleys cleared a bit more before the rainy season hits us. We can get an idea how the "mini dam" which is down there now works. It will also give us some water for compacting layers as we move dirt. We have a 3" line (corrugated drainage pipe) running down there now from the water tank and use it to wet the dirt down. So our plan is to go slow, learn a lot about pond building and save up for the essential ingredients for a successful project.

One thing we've been looking at is a separate independent solar system to power our pumps down there.
I might get an education for building a small power system for filtering pumps and water moving pumps. But that's gonna cost some bucks, so it's back to the savings mode for us. In the mean time, we are enjoying life out here and working hard at the daily ranch stuff. BTW, your land grader is peacefully at rest awaiting the day to see it's owner again. Thanks for letting me use it all this time.
I'm sure I'll see you guys again in Feb for the Ag show, right?

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Rob,

The fire department will connect to the dry hydrant with the engine. Using the pump on the engine they will lower the pressure in the dry hydrant and suck the water from the pond. The road to the suction point has to be strong enough to support an engine so they can connect. Also the dry hydrant should be flushed every few years to prevent clogging. Many times the fire department will come out with engine for a drill and flush it out for you.

Talk to your local FD they may have more information on what they look for on a dry hydrant.

Here is a video to give you an idea

YouTube - Fire truck drafting from a ground well

 

[EddieWalker]

Just a few thoughts on planning a pond. I've built 7 so far with all of them under an acre except for Lake Marabou. No matter what you think, it won't be big enough. If it takes an extra year or more to make it, go as big as you possibly can. There is nothing worse then finishing it, having it fill up and then regrettting making it smaller then you could have.

To keep weeds and shoreline plants to a minimum, make the shore as steep as you can.

I've read that the fish use the top four feet of water for 90 percent of their activities, but I've found that fishing for them,they always seem to be on the bottom of the pond. Either way, the deeper you make the pond, the more water you can lose duing a dry spell and not go dry. I would go as deep as you possibly can. You'll need dirt for the dam, so taking it from the bottom of the pond is ideal.

Rocks are your enemy. If you hit a rock, water will seap out of the pond along the edge of the rock. Either remove it, or burry it and compact it with 2 feet of clay.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Here is the bible of pond design.

http://www.in.nrcs.usda.gov/pdf files/PONDS.PDF

Read through it and you will be able to calculate how big to make your dam.

Eddie

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I'm sure I'll see you guys again in Feb for the Ag show, right?

Yes, I'm sure that we will be up for the AG show. In the mean time, if you need a little tractor help, I could bring my 3215 up and help for a few days. It is between your two tractors in size and would be easy for me to trailer up.

Anyway, the offer is there if you decide that you would like some help sometime. Good luck with your layout and please keep us informed on the project. Hey, has it started to cool down up there? It's still getting in the upper 90's here.

 

[3RRL]

Tom,
Thanks for that video and more information about the dry hydrant.
I will try to get a road close enough or run enough pipe to have it accessible.

Eddie,
Thanks for the tips and the link ... I am downloading it as I type this.
I'm going to print it out and read it through. As I said, it will be another long term project not only for the size of the project, but the associated costs too. The digging and dirt moving we can do as we go. We'll have to budget for all the stuff we need to buy to make it happen.

Brian, it's still in the 90's here too with cooling weather (low 80's) next week.
Thanks again for the offer and I will let you know. Right now we are taking it one step at a time and only when we don't have other stuff to do. So even though we've laid it out and did some preliminary clearing, it will be way off in the future.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Sounds good Rob, and we look forward to seeing you and Loretta in the future.

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Rob,

Here is more information on the design when you are ready. NFPA 1142 is the national standard on how to design the dry hydrant. You can buy the code at www.nfpa.org or you can go to this site and you can look at the code for free.

Free NFPA Codes and Standards

Look for NFPA 1142, Annex I, it has detailed engineering calculation to determine size of pipe, maximum distance, etc etc.

 

[MarkV]

Rob you should also check out Pond Boss Magazine and spend some reading time on their forum.

MarkV