The idea to build an artificial reservoir in the country comes to the minds of many landowners. Undoubtedly, such a source of coolness and positive emotions will delight not only the owner himself, but also his guests, becoming a real highlight of the landscape. The mere look of a smooth surface helps a person to relax, tune in to the lyrical way, and causes inspiration. But, after critically evaluating just six hundred square meters of their own land, some abandon their dreams. But in vain! We will tell you about how to bring it to life by making a mini-pond from a tire with your own hands at the cottage, and at the same time dispose of old rubber that is not needed in the household.
Choosing a place for a mini-pond
A decorative mini-pond should delight and attract everyone's attention. Therefore, the place where it should be located should be chosen especially carefully. There are several rules that we recommend that you follow to make a good choice:
- The pond should not be constantly in the sun. Penumbra is the best place for him. Otherwise, the plants will be too hot, and they will begin to wither, and the water will bloom quickly.
- Open and blown places are also not the best option.
- If you build a pond under the crowns of trees, the water will constantly become clogged with leaves and small debris. The cleaning process will become regular for you and will tire you.
It is good if the pond is clearly visible from different points of view. Let beautiful objects be reflected in it: running clouds, a house or trees. Know that small ponds look best when you look at them from above. Therefore, they are often placed in natural landscape depressions.
In such a place, the mini-pond will be clearly visible from different points of view. In addition, it will not be exposed to direct sunlight
If you doubt your own choices, check yourself out. Take a piece of polyethylene, which will represent the mini-pond, and put it in your chosen place. Walk around the site and see how well it is visible from the main viewpoints.
Where to find a suitable tire?
Before looking for a tire, let's decide what exactly we want to find. If the space on the site is sorely lacking, then for the realization of our dreams it will be enough for us to find a tire from any passenger car.
For a large-scale project, the size of the wheel must be impressive. After all, there are wheels whose diameter exceeds human height. Using them as a basis, you can build a whole lake!
Car tires come in many sizes. It is not so difficult to find such a Guliver among them, and it is hardly necessary if the size of the site does not exceed the standard six hundredths
For large objects, you must have:
- tire from KAMAZ;
- rear wheel from the Belarus tractor;
- tires from the mighty "BELAZ".
If your own unnecessary tire is not covered up in your garage, then a suitable copy can be found in the tire workshop. There often accumulates unnecessary rubber to be disposed of, so you will get it for free.
Spent tires can also be found at auto companies. It is possible that they will have to pay there, but purely symbolically. Ordinary car owners can also offer what you are looking for. So check out their ads.
The problem of recycling tires is quite acute not only in our country, but throughout the world. Our craftsmen contribute to its decision
What will be your body of water?
In a tiny pond, it is unlikely that you can get fish. Although the goldfish from the aquarium can feel good in a small artificial pond. However, this structure can be decorated in other ways. For example, Siberian iris can be planted along its banks.
Great companions of any pond will be
- water lilies;
- marsh turkey;
- floating rdest.
In the end, you can use artificial ornaments that mimic the same lilies, but do not require attention. On its surface small imitations of ducks may look good, and turtles along the shores.
Plants planted around an artificial reservoir can completely transform it, turning it into a favorite resting place for all family members
The rubber base should be securely covered with decorative flagstone so that no one would even think how a mini-pond formed on your site. Often satellites of water structures are small alpine slides, which, incidentally, solve the problem of creating shadows.
To provide an additional effect, you can highlight the design with the help of solar-powered garden lights. All the energy that they accumulate on a sunny day, at night they will use up in the form of a soft mysterious glow.
Pond decorations also have their flip side - they attract the attention of kids who like to play in such a fabulous place.
Whatever your mini-pond, you should remember that for small children left unattended, it can become a source of danger.
Step-by-step instruction
Any work is preceded by a preparatory phase. It is necessary to bring together all the necessary tools and material so that as little as possible are distracted in the process of performing work.
Stage # 1 - preparing tools and materials
We do not need a lot of tools:
- two types of shovels: bayonet and shovel;
- building level;
- electric jigsaw or conventional hacksaw.
In addition to the tire, with the diameter of which we have already decided, we need:
- PVC film or special covering material for pools, which is sold in specialized stores;
- sand;
- gravel;
- large stones to decorate the shores of the pond;
- plants for decorating a pond and framing.
If everything you need is prepared, you can get to work.
Stage # 2 - prepare the tire for work
Despite the fact that we are going to bury the tire, at the first stage of work it must be cleaned of dirt. But her preparation will not end there. We need to cut off its upper part.
Cutting the upper part of one of the sides of tires can be done with a sharp knife, a jigsaw at low speed or a hacksaw for working on metal
It is unlikely that an ordinary knife is suitable for this purpose. We recommend using a low speed jigsaw. You can also use a hacksaw for metal, but then more operations and time will have to be spent on this operation.
Stage # 3 - digging a recess for a reservoir
Before making a deepening, it is necessary to level the platform. Now we need to decide how much we want to deepen the rubber base of the future structure.
She may be:
- immersed in the soil over the entire width of its tread;
- buried by one third;
- stay on the surface of the prepared site.
Based on the decision, we dig a hole. Its shape should correspond to the outer diameter of the tire, but with small allowances around its entire circumference. Do not completely deepen the rubber base into the pit: if you leave a rubber edge on the surface, rainwater will not fill the tank.
Before installing the tire in the resulting recess, it is necessary to level the bottom and fill it with sand by about 15 cm. The sand should be soft and without pebbles. In this case, he will be able to protect the gasket placed at the bottom of the reservoir from damage, and water leakages can be avoided.
When forming a depression for a tire, you need to compact the sand well at the place of the future bottom of the mini-pond and check the quality of the work performed
We check the quality of the work performed with a level. Do not forget to tamp the bottom and only then place the rubber base on it. After this, use the level again to check the horizontal position of the tire.
Stage # 4 - waterproofing device
For the arrangement of waterproofing, it is better to use a dense covering material, which is specially designed to protect the bottom of the pools. You can buy it in specialized stores for pools. Sometimes it can be found among the goods for the garden. The material must be taken in such a way that it protrudes about half a meter beyond the tire walls.
Yes, we prefer special waterproofing material, rather than ordinary polyethylene. Someone may argue that because of this, our structure becomes less like home-made, for the creation of which they usually use improvised materials. But it is better to make a design that will last you more than one year without changing the bottom. After all, even very thick polyethylene will not be able to withstand the load and will certainly let it leak.
However, each owner himself decides which material is best for him to use. When choosing ordinary polyethylene, consider its replacement when you begin to strengthen the walls of the future pond. You may have to disassemble the structure.
Even if you fold the plastic film in half, it will leak. To replace it, the mini-pond will have to be dismantled, so the top of the structure will have to be collapsible
So, the covering material is freely distributed along the bottom of the pit, and its edges are brought out half a meter outside the edges of the tire placed in the recess.
The membrane of the material should be rationally distributed inside the tire. For this purpose, the future cottage mini-pond is filled with water, which will exert pressure on the bottom and walls of the structure. Under its pressure, the pond will take its form.
Take the time to do quality work and you will get an excellent result that you can be proud of for several years.
Now the covering material must be carefully straightened. To fix the coating in the desired position, you can crush it with rounded boulders laid on the bottom from opposite sides.
Stage # 5 - we form the walls and decorate the pond
We smooth the edges of the material and sprinkle them with sand and gravel. This will finally fix the membrane. Now she will not slip. The sand will serve as the basis for further decoration of the pond.
Further strengthening and decoration of the reservoir completely depends on the imagination of its author. At the initial stage, you can simply stone the pond.
If you manage to find a big tire, you can make a mini-pond not only for children, but also for adult family members
Options for placing stones depend on the degree of functionality of the structure:
- For swimming. If the tire was large, then such a structure can even be used for swimming. The shores of such a pond should not be overloaded with stones. With their help, it is enough to form a platform around the walls. A large number of stones can lead to injuries to bathers.
- For decorative purposes. If you need a pond only to create a beautiful image, you can dream up with the arrangement of stones in order to emphasize their beauty as advantageously as possible. In this case, one need not be afraid to show their sharp edges. They look spectacular.
Stones can be laid out in several rows, placing round and large boulders below, and smaller pebbles on top. Even the bottom of a mini-pond can be decorated with a nice small oval-shaped pebble taken from a river or brought from the sea. But sand with gravel for decorating the bottom is better not to use, because the water from them can become cloudy.
Do not overload the mini-pond with decorative elements. He is already handsome. Even in the minimalist style, it remains a magnificent place that attracts the eyes.
In any garden, regardless of the will of its owners, many small animals live. It can be, for example, moles, hedgehogs or mice. If you do not want to find the corpse of an unfortunate hedgehog in the water one morning, put a picturesque snag in the pond. It will not only make the building look natural, but also help the animal avoid death.
To visualize the whole process of work, watch the video:
Other ideas for the construction of such a pond
If you think that a pond from a single tire is all that the fantasy of domestic craftsmen-gardeners was able to generate, then you are deeply mistaken. There are a lot of options for using tires for creating ponds. And we will tell you about the most popular of them now.
If you take not one, but two tires of equal or even different sizes, you can make not one, but two ponds that will touch each other with protectors. The most interesting in this building will be its decorative design. For example, at the junction of two rubber bases, you can build a beam bridge of birch logs. It can be both decorative and a continuation of the garden path.
By changing the degree of deepening of the tires, you can create ponds with overflow. To do this, one tire is fixed on the surface of the site, and the other is buried. With the help of this overflow, by the way, it is possible to organize the removal of rainwater flowing from the roof.
On the basis of ponds with overflow, you can make a homemade waterfall. To do this, you need to hold a hose to the upper tank, from which water is supplied under low pressure. It can be carefully camouflaged with stones located along the banks. Water, overflowing the upper part of the structure, will effectively run into its lower half, simulating a waterfall.
If the landscape of your site allows, then why not build such a magnificent waterfall, the basis of which are all the same tires
The pool in the summer is something that no child can leave indifferent. A large tire will make it easy and simple. Kids will have something to dabble under the supervision of adults. It is best to surround the children's splash pool with a coastal zone of tiles so that you can safely step on it with bare feet. To protect the children, the water in such a pool must be filtered. A pump can be used for this purpose. Or you can just change the water more often.
A good idea for revitalizing a pond might be to use a fountain in it. To do this, you can adapt a turbine with an aquarium nozzle or a small pump. For the fountain to work, it needs to be supplied with power. Do not forget to protect yourself: the electrical wire must be insulated with a corrugated pipe and buried.
See how the construction of a fountain from a tire looks like:
Even if there is no meta for the reservoir at all in the garden using a tire, it can be done on the balcony, on the terrace or in the loggia. Artificial stones, which can be glued with a water-based composition to the side surface of the tire, will help to make the design attractive.
Of course, this list of ideas cannot be exhausted, because human imagination knows no bounds. Watch this video - we are not fooling you:
