Home Improvement

Goatface said:

seems some pretty nice pits with stamped concrete
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Araysar said:

Sup bros, looking for some ideas on what to do with this fire pit area.

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As you see it now is the way it was when I bought the house. Minus the missing paver stones. I stole those for another project. There was a cheap firepit on top of the pavers which is rusty at this point and needs to be disposed. I'd like to turn this patch of dirt between the walkout basement and the tree into a stone patio. The dimensions are roughly 15x18 feet. 15 feet between the main pillars of the patio. 18 feet out to the far edge of the pavers, from the edge of the concrete of the walkout patio.

Option 1. I guess I could just do the plain rectangle and lay down 270 1-ft paver stones but I think it would look ugly.

Option 2: Do flag stones and gravel

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Option 3: Do a rectangle that ends in a semi circle. Cant find a good picture but would be something like this
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Some considerations:

1. My understanding is that you want to excavate about 8-9 inches of dirt and fill gravel in a 6 inch layer, then 1 inch layer of sand, and save 1-2 inches for pavers/stones. Im concerned that the tree that grows just past the firepit area probably has a bunch of roots at that depth. Could I get away just by filling sand and gravel around the roots where necessary or would the roots shift too much over time?

2. I want to make sure that the water doesnt pool on the concrete in the walkout area, would I have to dig even deeper and then create a very small graded slope across the whole patio away from the house or will the gaps between the stones be enough to absorb rainfall?

3. How much of a pain in the ass would this be? Something that can be done in a weekend or two or am I looking at like 40-80 hours of work here? Would it make more sense just to hire someone who knows how to do stone scaping and then hire 1-2 laborers for him?


If you have any suggestions that are better than mine, I'd love to hear them. Im just tired of looking at this weed and moss covered patch of dirt.

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McCheese said:

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My questions:
1. What's the best way to bridge the gap and connect the two ponds? I'd like to avoid digging them up and physically moving them closer (but even then I'd need to connect them).
2. Is this by design? I know nothing about water features, but this seems like a stupid thing. Both of the ponds are firmly dug in, so I don't think there's been any shifting.

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McCheese said:

Previous owners of our house had a water feature installed in the backyard. It's been sitting dormant since the pump they have didn't work and we've had more important stuff to fix up in other parts of the property. It's becoming a mosquito breeding ground, so I decided to get it up and running this past weekend.

I got a pump, got it running, but then I noticed it wasn't flowing correctly. It consists of 3 sections: an upper fountain, a smaller pond (in the middle), and a bigger pond (on the end). I removed a bunch of the decorative rocks and realized that the bigger pond isn't connected to the smaller pond and upper fountain. So it was pumping water out of the bigger pond, shooting it out of the fountain, falling into the smaller pond, and then overflowing and going into the dirt. There's a 6ish inch gap between the smaller and bigger ponds with just plain dirt. See the pictures:

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My questions:
1. What's the best way to bridge the gap and connect the two ponds? I'd like to avoid digging them up and physically moving them closer (but even then I'd need to connect them).
2. Is this by design? I know nothing about water features, but this seems like a stupid thing. Both of the ponds are firmly dug in, so I don't think there's been any shifting.

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McCheese said:

Previous owners of our house had a water feature installed in the backyard. It's been sitting dormant since the pump they have didn't work and we've had more important stuff to fix up in other parts of the property. It's becoming a mosquito breeding ground, so I decided to get it up and running this past weekend.

I got a pump, got it running, but then I noticed it wasn't flowing correctly. It consists of 3 sections: an upper fountain, a smaller pond (in the middle), and a bigger pond (on the end). I removed a bunch of the decorative rocks and realized that the bigger pond isn't connected to the smaller pond and upper fountain. So it was pumping water out of the bigger pond, shooting it out of the fountain, falling into the smaller pond, and then overflowing and going into the dirt. There's a 6ish inch gap between the smaller and bigger ponds with just plain dirt. See the pictures:

View attachment 416874\
View attachment 416875

My questions:
1. What's the best way to bridge the gap and connect the two ponds? I'd like to avoid digging them up and physically moving them closer (but even then I'd need to connect them).
2. Is this by design? I know nothing about water features, but this seems like a stupid thing. Both of the ponds are firmly dug in, so I don't think there's been any shifting.

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Mist said:

I can't find a contractor that isn't booked out solid for months, to do any kind of work on my house. Some fucking recession this is.

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Kiroy said:

lol saying they're booked out means the job you have for them is small potatoes shit, or they heard your voice and instantly assumed that you wouldn't be worth the hassle. I'm going with the latter.

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Mist said:

I already dug up a big section of my back yard built a pretty nice patio with a sand bed and concrete pavers and stuff last month in between escalations at work. Ditto for putting up a new ceiling in the bathroom. No stranger to hard work.

But this is some rather difficult HVAC and plumbing stuff (need to replace a 30+ year old heating system, along with a bunch of other things like adding a laundry sink in the basement and much better sump pumps) that is way out of scope for doing myself.

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