Monday, January 21, 2013

The Sluice Gate

We found this
hidden under a pile of this.
We had heard there was a concrete box of some sort made many years ago to divert water from the stream into the inground pool.  The pool was pushed in and covered up in the 1940s or 50s so the concrete diverter is older than that.  On Saturday, while Alan and I were splitting and stacking a half cord of firewood, Chester came over and showed us approximately where the diverter was.  We found it pretty quickly once we knew where to look for it.
This morning I spent a few hours clearing out wild rose bush and honeysuckle and digging out most of the concrete trough.  There was some nice soil that I think I will let dry a little then move it to the new location for the greenhouse.
The "sluice gate" has a wheel on one end to control the flow of water into the pool.  A pipe was attached to take the water down to the pool.

What I find really exciting about this discovery is the possibilities for getting water out of the stream for the animals and plants.  The stream is very shallow and just about impossible to get more than a few inches of water into a bucket.  During power outages it would be nice to be able to get water from our stream for the animals.  If I have a concrete tank 16 inches deep I will definitely be able to get water into a bucket.  Alan is also looking at the possibility of putting a pump on the sluice.
I am eager to see what we can use this for in the future.

3 comments:

  1. Looks like a fun engineering project!

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  2. What a fun find! I look forward to blog posts about developments with this!

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  3. Amazing how quickly it filled up just with water seeping in from the edge of the stream. And now it is frozen solid!

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