Update 01/09/11

Heaps of praise must go here to Mark who makes the necessary steel frames for Eric Filters.

I telephoned him on Friday evening 26/08 with dimensions of the stands required for this installation and asked if they could be made as a matter of some real urgency.

The reply came back – ‘Well it’s a bank holiday weekend Waddy, but leave it with me – I’ll do my best’.

I got a call from him the following morning advising me that the stands would be made up complete with adjustable legs that day (Saturday 27/08); they would be powder coated on the next day (Sunday 28/08) and delivered, some 127 miles away, on Bank Holiday Monday 29/08.

And they WERE – what a truly incredible service!

By Tuesday lunchtime on 30/08 the two Eric Three units were in position on the new stands.

As can be seen, ‘the length space’ taken up by the old system been reduced by some 50%, ‘the width space’ taken up has also been reduced by some 60% and ‘the depth space’ has been reduced by more than half which allowed us to install the water pumps and the air pumps out of view underneath the filter units.

In fact, in terms of cubic footage taken up by the filter units only it is around 20% of the cubic footage taken up by the other filtration units.

Fortunately this narrow filter housing has always had a discharge sump built into the floor and is fitted with a submersible pump activated by float switch to pump wastewater to the sewer.

The 4” bore line from the pond bottom drain entered the filter house directly over the discharge sump and this allowed us to try out something new with Eric units.

As can be seen by this illustration, the waste lines from both units are now redundant and have been ‘stopped’ with the necessary fittings. The line ‘IN’ from the pond drain is now also the line ‘OUT’ to waste and here is the procedure for ‘the daily dump’ on this system.

DISCHARGE OPERATION – THIS SYSTEM

1. SWITCH OFF WATER PUMPS ON BOTH FILTERS.

2. CLOSE SLIDE VALVE FROM POND BOTTOM DRAIN.

3. PLACE STANDPIPES IN BOTH FILTERS.

4. OPEN 4” BALL VALVE.

5. REMOVE ONE STANDPIPE AND WAIT UNTIL FILTER BOX IS EMPTY.

6. REMOVE NEXT STANDPIPE AND WAIT UNTIL FILTER BOX IS EMPTY.

7. CLOSE THE 4” BALL VALVE.

8. OPEN SLIDE VALVE FROM POND BOTTOM DRAIN AND WAIT UNTIL BOTH FILTER BOXES ARE FULL.

9. SWITCH ON BOTH WATER PUMPS.

10. CHECK ‘THE CONSTANT TRICKLE’ IS ALWAYS RUNNING.

Another ‘first’ on this installation is the overflow, as this water is used to supply a wild life pond some distance away. In view of this and in view of the fact that the standpipes are only used in discharge operation and could not be drilled as usual, a separate adjustable-level overflow has been fitted to one of the filters.

This allows the owner a system water level variation of 2” without affecting the water levels in the filter units.

The ‘constant trickle’ entry to one of the filter units needs to be visible at all times and so a neat 2” diameter hole was drilled through the top of one lid which keeps everything tidy.

Another new addition to the system is this heat pump to supplement the existing oil-fired boiler.

As an aside here, and nothing at all to do with Koi and certainly nothing to do with me ‘sucking up’ because I don’t do that – but I have known the owner and his lovely wife since ’97, however these past days spent with them at the beautiful house and wonderful gardens made me suddenly realise that what I thought I’d seen there years before must have been viewed with half-closed eyes!

Please take this as read because it’s the truth.

Over many years I have been privileged to be able to visit private houses and private grounds (through Koi) that I would never have had the chance to see if I had not been in the job of designing and building proper Koi ponds or supplying proper Koi.

I’ll say it here and now but I cannot ever recall seeing a more ‘uniquely beautiful’ house and simply breathtaking walled grounds than this absolute wonderland BUT much more to the point, it has ALL been masterminded and planned by the owners themselves and the attention to detail in order to achieve the final effect is simply – well I’ll try to find a suitable superlative later.

Before the owner actually ordered the new filter system we were opposite each other across a table arguing endlessly until his wife passed by, took a quick shot from her camera, and mentioned – ‘Good to see you two arguing again as usual’ – before passing into the next room!

Here are a few shots of the outside of the house and parts of the garden, it is almost impossible to believe that all this started out as a ‘one up–one down’ tiny stone cottage with a very tiny garden. The owners have added to the land gradually over the years and then added these impressive stone buildings to the tiny stone cottage to produce a true living work of art that should really be a National Treasure!

Please enjoy, in ‘gardening circles’ these shots were taken at the wrong time of the year but I’m sure you’ll get the feel of it all…………….