Ball Fountain vault repairs

Water features require a lot of maintenance.

So it happens from time to time that repairs are needed in the Gardens. Our infrastructure has reached the age where parts and structures fail and need to be fixed. Such was the case for the vault, or pit, of our ball fountain. Our ball fountain is not really a fountain in the technical sense, it doesn’t send water shooting into the air. But, it does use water to lift and rotate the 1500lb solid “granite” ball in the rose garden. To accomplish that feat, pumps and lots of plumbing are used and they are located in a vault just to the west of the ball.

BallFountainPitThe vault is actually a concrete septic tank with the top cut off that we buried into the ground. One of the walls cracked a few years ago and slowly was pushing in. It got to the point that at any moment it would collapse in. MSU masons were contacted and they said they could build us a new wall. We (okay so really a student) dug out the soil from the exterior side of the failing wall. Then the masons came in, cut out the old wall and removed it, and rebuilt it with concrete blocks. The new wall can be seen with the white waterproofing they applied. Fortunately for me, they were able to enlarge the vault width by 1”, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but with all of the mechanicals in the vault, and maybe me gaining the Covid 15 pounds, the extra room is very welcome. On to the next repair…

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