Makes Sure Your Architect Provide For This...

Many times during the process of designing a house the followings are left out partly due to ingorance of the designer.

Fish Pond

Fish Ponds need provision for filter compartment and pump compartment as well as predetermined drainage and pipings. As a rule of thumb, an efficient filter size should be a third of the actual pond and the depth should be 150-200mm deeper than the pond. Make sure there are provisions for water supply point, power point (at least 3-4nos. 13amp), scour pipe 75mm dia, overflow pipe 50mm dia. If you desire lighting for your fish pond, make sure the wires are laid well ahead as armoured cable are not advisable to be jointed in the event it is not long enough.
A well designed pond should also promote underwater circulation pump thus circulation pipes should be included and water inlet should not be just from the fountain or water fall. Timers should be included too in the event you wishes to turn off the cascade in the night. UV light treatment to pond water is also advisable to prevent the water turning green. Don't be mislead that properly filtered water will not turn green, it will in fact must faster as there is no more chlorine as a inhibitor. Levels of inlets or outlets are important too as you don't want your pond be drained dry in the event of electrical black-out. If he/she is not well verse, seek proper advise. We had seen too many mistakes and the owner had to comprimise on the filteration system due to initial work wrongly carried out. Seek advise! or else you pay!

Soak-away-drains

What is the purpose of soak away drain? Well, to drain water right? It should, and should only meant for draining ground water from your lawn. We had seen architect/designer uses it as an alternative of perimeter drain, Nothing wrong in that but unfortunatelly even rain water collected from roof is drain into them. In state of draining the lawn it actually acts the reverse and saturating your lawn. Remember placement of them is very important inrelation to where will be your flower beds and trees. You dont want the drain to clogg with roots won't you! Very common mistake is that these soak away drains are placed next to the perimeter fences and that is where you love to plant your rosses!

Soak-away drain usually will have washed pebbles or tumble stone placed on top of them, nice looking isn't it. The problem with this is that there is no physical barrier (can be discrete) between these stones and you nice grass. Roots of the grass will eventually creep under these stone and you will have grass between them. Your landscaper will have a had time mowing your lawn and thus you pay extra too. Secondly it is impossible to trim the edge neatly, so a barrier, either timber of concrete, 30-50mm thick by 150mm deep should be placed between them. First preventing the roots getting into the stones and secondly you can have a neat edge.

Manholes and Sump

Decide firstly how is you garden levels from day 1, if not you will find them popping out all over you lawn. If decided and planned properly you can even have them concealed under your grass, or serve as a base for you nicely potted bonsai. If not once again you would need to spend extra hacking them to lower them and so on.