In case you don't know, I'm a contractor;  I've been a carpenter by trade for the last 10 years.  Recently, my old friend and guru in the trades called me in to help out on project that's been running for about seven weeks.  He's been there 10 or 12 hours a day the entire time.  Now, the two of us, along with two of my friends have joined onto that schedule.  Wait till you hear what we're up to!

The job's down around Westchester, PA (about two hours away for my two friends and me.)  So the work demands about 16 hours with travel time.  We make the best of the drive by snacking and sharing stories. 

So this nice couple, who live on Huge horse farm, got tired of looking at the low point in the land where all the water runs to before in continues down the hill into the stream.  I guess they thought, 'this gully has been overgrown and an eye sore for too long' and decided to build some ponds.

Just down the hill a piece from the horse rink and barn, is a new springhouse.  Back in the day, before refrigerators, folks would build these structures over the point where water came to the surface, the spring.  In the spring house, they would place (sometimes in troughs with running water) certain food that needed to be cool in order to keep.  The running water maintained a constant temperature within the springhouse, despite the warmer outside temperature. 

Beyond the springhouse, here's the basic design of the project:  At the door opening of the springhouse, where there is no door, is  a small waterfall which falls into the top pond.  It's about 50 feet across to the the next waterfall, which is one or two feet and falls into the second pond.  Another 50 or so feet takes you to the stone culvert.  This is basically a bridge with stone walls that arch across the top, from one side of the bridge to the other.  The walls stand about two feet high and are about 15 or 20 feet long.  The circular passage under the culvert leads to the third pond.  This one's a bit smaller. 

At the bottom of the whole thing, soon to be buried in the ground, are three septic tanks used as water storage and utility space.  There are two "wet wells" and one "dry well."  The wet wells will be full of water as it flows from the low pond, through the wet wells, and into the pump located in the dry well.  Now the water gets pumped up to the spring house to keep the falls going.  Well, the dry well needed a higher ceiling so we formed walls and pour concrete to extend them vertically.  The form system also included a 9 inch thick "lid" that has an opening for a stair case. 

Building those forms and pouring those walls was a pretty intense couple of days.  Very satisfying though.  I mean, what a cool thing to do for work, despite the long hours.  But that was nothing...

At the top of this enormous water feature, also buried in the ground, are nine more septic tanks.  By the way, these particular tanks measure about 12'x6' and have 3 1/2 inch think walls.  These 9 tanks are connected to each other and to the pond system.  They're fed water from the rain leaders of the house and also the barn.  The intent is to supply the ponds with water during the dry season, but also to control the drainage around the house. 

Now you might say, why did you guys go through the trouble of forming walls and pouring concrete to extend the walls of the dry well?  If you knew the homeowner, you might understand a little better...

You know how you sit around and talk about all these cool things you could do, things around the house.  You say, 'We could do this and then do that' and 'yeah, that would be cool!'  Well, this guy actually has enough money to do it!  (I need to mention that these people are some of the most down-to-earth, kind and caring family folks that I've ever met, also probably the wealthiest, maybe.)

Yes, the walls were sort of an afterthought, in the flow of ideas and decision making, but that was nothing!  When I built those forms and we poured the concrete, the ponds, the block wall for the water fall, the springhouse and all the tanks were in place.  I figured they'd start filling this thing up with water pretty soon and I was done there.   RRRRRR!  Wrong!  I did those forms and came away from the project for a few days.  And just yesterday came back to help with the latest 'great idea.'  Geo-Thermal Heating!

This guy, the homeowner, spends about $600 a week heating his house with oil, so he decided to put in a geo-thermal heat system, which lately has become a pretty hot deal.  Water stays the constant temperature of the ground (well below frost)  which around here is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit.  The heat is 'extracted' from this water and transferred somehow to the water that heats the house.  I'm no expert on this end of the trades yet, but it seems to be worth while.

Now, it takes a certain amount of water to do this.  In this case, twelve 1,000 foot loops of 1 1/4 pipe go under these ponds out of and back into the dry well, where it goes in to and back out of the house, a good 200 feet away. 

So the afterthought, the poured walls, was actually to accommodate these 12 loops going in and out of the dry well, tied into a manifold... Little did I know the would be digging up the ponds to create the field to lay it in! 

Did you hear what I said?  They dug up two of the ponds and went quite a bit deeper and a little bit wider to create a semi-round field, about a hundred feet in diameter, so they could lay the loops of pipe in the ground for their new heat system!  So I guess the savings over time that the more efficient heat system would accrue, is sort of tapped into if not completely canceled out, because they dug up all the work of the last few weeks, only to build it all over again.  Excavate the ponds, run a whole bunch of pipe, again...

...And that's where we are at this very moment as I type this blog at 10:48pm.  I left at five this morning and got home around nine.  Same with yesterday.  But I felt like writing about this experience, as it's one of the more interesting jobs I've ever been involved with. 

That leaves tomorrow and the next few days to lay this pipe.  Did I mention that, since this is all an afterthought, there's not exactly a design for how 12,000 feet of pipe is going to lay in this huge bowl they just dug, without crossing and without any fittings!  We're in for a good one tomorrow.  If you have any ideas, give me a call quick!  Cause I'm leaving at 6am tomorrow.  (We get to sleep in, yay!)