Survivalist Forum banner

Anyone ever build a small dam or catch pond

16K views 18 replies 15 participants last post by  red rebel 
#1 ·
Anyone ever build a small dam or catch pond?

I'm thinking of trying to capture some of the water that rolls down the field out back. There is a ditch/creek that runs through the middle of the field, and with the slope I am thinking that I can dig out some small catch ponds. They would be used for irrigating the garden, and/or emergency water should the need arise.

I have been looking at rammed earth houses the last few days, and I'm wondering if you could do something similar to build a small dam. You might need to up the percentage of portland cement, but if the mix is already 60% sand, 30% clay, and 10% cement you are already doing something that is mostly a mortar mix.

Anyone ever tried something like this?
 
#2 ·
I have used a rock structure with a canvas tarp laid over stones and secured with additional stones over the toop to great effect for retaining the water, if you are dealing with silty water a pre dam or catch basin to catch sediment, and then a mini waterfall type obstruction, to help add oxygen can be a great thing so your main water source does not fill up as fast , and the smaller pre catch basin may be easier to clean out.
 
#4 ·

This guy has a very sweet set-up. He has the distinct advantage of a long drop over a short distance.


Before you block the flow of water you may want to check into where it goes after it leaves your property. Most all states have strict rules against interrupting the flow of water to anyone down stream from you. The DNR also gets involved, even if the stream flows directly into a larger stream or river.

Flowing water is a great source of Renewable energy, not many are so fortunate.
 
#6 ·
just finished building one. I Got a eight foot I Beam and cut it in half and took the pieces down to the creek, we took the backhoe with a 12 inch narrow bucket and dug a 10 foot trench crossways to the creek, we then took the I beam pieces and drove each one vertically into each side of the creek bank with the open "c" side faceing each other. After we filled in the back side of the trenches by installing heavy treated boards into the beam slots and backfilling the boards and trenches with gravel that we scraped off the road. We cut short pieces of heavy treated boards to place between the beams over and in the creek. That way we could control the water level for our "pond" by adding more or less boards to gain height. I'm tearing down a old gas generator today that the motor went out and am going to order a water turbine and attach a long water race at the top of the dam with the turbine at the bottom end of the race to try and make some electricity. and maybe add a ram pump for pumping irrigation water.

Your water supply must have enough Flow to make it worthwhile, I measured mine and calculated 350 gallons every ten minutes. You could use rocks or other methods to make a dam, but if something bad happens like a flood or a serious rain storm, you will have a option to dump that extra water. We installed large eye hooks on each board crossing the creek so we could reach out and hook them and pull them up out of the I beam rack without getting down in the creek. Once everything settles down in the pond we want to stock it with some fish.
 
#18 ·
I'll throw in my two cents.. make sure you excavate the basin area (if building a pond), you'll want to hit clay and make sure its compacted, otherwise what you catch will drain through the "top soil".. you can buy pelletized clay and line bottom..
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top