Late June - Mid July, 2008: The construction of G-Force Falls

For Suzy's birthday present, I was to oversee the construction of a waterfall in our back yard. In a rare feat of non-micromanagement, this happened from late June through mid July, and I did not lift a shovel, place a rock, or get damp, let alone wet. The reason is that Garrett Karnowski threw himself into the task, and did everything. And I mean everything. This is why we named it G-Force Falls, in honor of Garrett.

I told Garrett I'd advertise him with the falls -- if you're in the greater Knoxville area and want to hire Garrett to build you a waterfall, his email is:

If you're planning to build a waterfall, this web page may prove helpful -- I'll include the parts list for you:

• Pond liner: 21 feet by 10 feet.
• Two 10' by 10' pieces of underlayment .
• A Pro-Line "Pondmaster" submersible inline hy-drive pump: 2600 GPH.
• A Savio waterfall well.
• A 16" Savio waterfall weir with filter.
• 20 feet of 1" flexible PVC pipe.
• A PVC fitting for each end of the pipe (one end had to be reduced from 1.5").
• One bag of "S Type" Quickcrete concrete mix.
• Two cans of Savio black foam for sealing cracks and helping to direct the water flow.
• Four baskets of river rock (each basket is 1400 pounds) plus some other rock that we gathered from various places.

Here's the photo-essay of the building of G-Force Falls:

010935 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: June 30. The space is cleared, and our idea is to build a pondless waterfall here. The basic idea is three tiers, each with their own mini-falls. I had originally thought the entire height would be 5 to 6 feet above the base level.	010936 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 1. A "pondless" waterfall is one with a pond that you fill in with large gravel (4"). A hard plastic "waterfall well" holds the pump and protects it from the gravel. The dimensions of the pond were to be four feet wide, three feet from front to back, and at least two feet deep. Garrett digs.	010937 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: And digs.
010938 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: And digs.	010939 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 3. Garrett has dug an outline of the three tiers.	010940 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Another view.
010941 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Another view.	Garrett Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: At this point, we had to leave town for a week, so here are the instructions I wrote to Garrett -- the tiers needed to be wider and more sharply defined, so that we could build rock walls from one tier to the next.	010942 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 15. We returned home to a perfect rendering of the instructions!
010943 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Another view.	010944 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: At this point, Garrett is ready to put the liner in place.	010945 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Some rare footage of Ellen helping.
010946 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: The liner and waterfall well are both in place.	010947 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Another view.	010948 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 16. Garrett starts on the wall. At this point, we decided we had to use concrete to keep the wall strong. Garrett mixed small batches in a foil roasting pan. As was recommended, he kept the rocks wet while putting the mortar into place.
010949 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 17. We also needed more rocks. Here's one of our "baskets" from the Rock Yard.	010950 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Wall construction.	010951 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Garrett with the wall leading to tier 1. We are a little concerned with the lack of liner on the left side, since we don't want water loss. It is decided that we'll try to divert the main waterfall toward the right side.
010952 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Still July 17. Garrett is getting really good at wall construction.	010953 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 24. We had ordered the PVC pipe on the Internet and it took a while to arrive. We had also tried a 2300 GPH pump, but it wasn't strong enough -- our "head" (vertical span from the bottom of the pump to the top of the falls) was about 10 feet, so we had to get a stronger pump. Here we're testing, and it's looking good!	010954 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Suzy inspects her waterfall. Garrett has used quite a bit of spray foam to make the water flow right. We were especially concerned with water going under the rocks and not over. I'm guessing that we could have used a third can of foam, but the store was out.
010955 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Etc.	010956 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Almost finished! You'll note that Garrett has rigged a drainage ditch to our yard's drain (to the right, out of the picture).	010957 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: Garrett works on getting the flow to look right.
010958 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: July 25 -- we are finished! Thor and Garrett inspect.	010959 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: A week later -- these pictures were taken on August 2. The waterfall has been churning constantly, and we love it! Yes, we'll have to do some landscaping, but that's Suzy's job....	010960 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: A closer picture (taken with a one second exposure to make the falls more pretty).
010961 Thumbnail Bigger Picture Description: One last picture.