Category: Hardscape

The Wobble Wedge

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June 7, 2019

TOOLS THAT DON’T SUCK

As water feature installers, my sons and I are used to hard, dirty, sometimes dangerous work. We enjoy what we do, whether it’s digging ponds, plumbing pumps, rolling boulders or tweaking waterfalls. We also value anything that helps make the work easier or more fun. We’re always looking for tools, apps or gadgets that save time & effort, eliminate stress, add to our comfort on the job or are just fun to use. Often a buddy will turn us on to one. I’d like to return the favor by passing our favorite Tools That Don’t Suck along to you.

The Wobble Wedge

Sometimes the best stuff comes in the smallest packages. That’s the way I think of this next doohickey. This deceptively simple device that’s so well engineered that I now take them for granted. But that’s only because I keep a jar full of them in every truck. I’m talking about the modest, overachieving Wobble Wedge.

Photo from WobbleWedges.com

The manufacturer calls them “a modular system of securely-stackable interlocking plastic shims”. Like any good system, there are a number of models to choose from. There are flexible and rigid wedges, white, black or clear in color. Three different sizes, all interlocking and cross-nesting, accommodate all sorts of leveling, shimming, tightening and locking tasks in and out of doors. All feature tiny ribs that lock wedge-to-wedge, regardless of the size of the wedge.

Wobble Wedge, Basalt Column
Can be adjusted in tiny increments and lock where you leave them.

For our purposes, we like the rigid standard black wedges for shimming columns and overflowing vases that need small adjustments, while the Big Gap wedges handle really uneven situations. Regardless of the size, all Wobble Wedges can be adjusted in tiny increments and lock where you leave them, no slipping or shifting.

Are they worthy of the status “Tools That Don’t Suck?”

Heck yes! These guys thought of everything that I could want on the job, and they have a couple of patents to prove it. The standard black Wobble Wedges are small and easily concealed. The hard plastic is pretty much indestructible. I say that after shimming over a thousand pounds with them, driving them home with a mallet to get a granite sphere dead level. They’re even forgiving! If you push them too far under a really big fountain or stone column, they have an inset Grab Bar at the back of the wedge that lets you pull them back out with a needlenose plier.

Wobble Wedge, Basalt Column
Grab Bar at the back of the wedge that lets you pull them back out.

Did I mention that they are 100% Made in the USA? And they’re inexpensive to boot, around $20 for a bucket of 75! When I showed one to my friends at a distributorship I was visiting, they brought them in the next day, no further convincing necessary. Love at first sight. 

If you haven’t already, try Wobble Wedges. I think you’ll like them.

Also check out or blog on the Atlantic Eco-Rise System to create reservoirs of practically any size, shape and volume supporting any number of decorative items with complete adjustability.

Atlantic Cord Seal Fitting

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A great new way to hide power cords!

Even the nicest water feature installation can be ruined if the cord for a pump or a light is visible, as they often are. Power cords should be removable, so that lights or pumps can be serviced or eventually replaced. They can’t just be buried away in concrete. With open reservoir water features, like ceramic vases or copper basins, a hole in the reservoir that’s big enough to pass a plug is hard to seal, and cutting the plug off voids the warranty on pumps and lights.

Wouldn’t it be great if a power cord could pass through the same bulkhead fitting that the water feeds through? Without leaking? That way, a light could be set inside the reservoir without a cord draping over the edge, or a pump cord inside a basin could pass through a plumbing fitting, virtually invisible. But, even if you ran a cord inside a pipe from inside the reservoir, how would you get it back outside of the pipe, outside of the reservoir?

Atlantic Cord Seal Fitting

Enter the CSF. The Cord Seal Fitting is a nifty gadget that addresses that particular need, to pass a cord through the wall of a reservoir inside the fitting or pipe that is the reservoir’s only perforation. It works much like a plumbing pressure test plug. A rubber gasket squeezed between two plates expands outwards and seals off a 1-1/2″ female socket. But, unlike a test plug, the rubber doughnut is slit to its center to accept a standard light or pump cord. The plates on either side of the gasket are also split, to assemble around the cord and gasket like the cookies around the creme of an Oreo. When tightened, the rubber expands tightly around the cord and into the fitting, creating a waterproof seal.

As is often the case, the Cord Seal Fitting is far easier to use than to describe. Install a tee in the 1-1/2″ waterline feeding the reservoir and pass the cord through the tee and into the reservoir. Loosen the plates on the CSF, slide the cord into the gasket, reattach the plates and tighten the CSF in the opening of the tee. The gasket will expand and seal against the cord and the inner walls of the tee.

The CSF will also allow the cord to pass in and out of a sealed section of pipe, with the addition of a second tee. This is useful where a pump may be hard piped from the inside of a reservoir, out through a bulkhead fitting and up to a spillway. The illustration to the right shows the pump cord passing out of the reservoir through tees through a tee installed on either side of the bulkhead fitting and sealed with Cord Seal Fittings inside and out.

Another great solution from the folks at Atlantic!

Mining Completed Projects for New Business

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One of the easiest ways to create new business is to prospect for new work in your existing customer base. For landscapers, hardscapers and poolscapers, getting a past customer to contract a new project can be very profitable, and there are other advantages. For example, this is one of the rare times the contractor gets to pick the client, instead of the other way around.

I go through my customer base and choose past clients who are easy to work with, can afford a new project, and would be interested in what I have to offer. If I choose wisely, my client benefits as well. He or she knows me and my work (and my boys and my dog) and trusts me to do the right job for the right price, no “new contractor blues”, no surprises. The key, then, is to find an attractive and desirable project that has a high perceived value and a high potential for profit, with little risk and minimal disruption to existing infrastructure.

Adding Water to the Hardscape, Landscape or Poolscape

According to the American Society of Landscape Architects, who poll their members every year to determine market trends, Water Features consistently make their ‘Top Ten’ desired enhancements list year after year, although the type of water feature may vary from year to year. Currently, Hardscape water features are very popular, and that puts all those customers squarely in our sights.

Atlantic Formal Spillways Hit the Bullseye

Many contractors already know that Atlantic’s Formal Spillways offer great visual impact, ease of installation and plenty of margin. What most do not know (yet) is that the Wall Spouts, Spillways and Colorfalls, and the Basins that complement them, were specifically designed not just for new work, but to upgrade pre-existing walls as well. Stainless Steel Spillways are exactly 4” tall by 12”, 24” or 36” long, to replace an even number of engineered wallstone. Colorfalls illuminated sheer descents drop into a simple-to-cut profile just under the cap of the wall. Solid brass Wall Spouts install from the front, threading directly onto 1-1/2” MIPT schedule 40 fittings.

Retrofitting – Easy Installation by Design

Choose the Spillway, Colorfalls or Wall Spout(s) and the appropriate Basin Kit, which contains everything needed for the installation – except the water ?. Determine where the feature will be located, and whether you want the Basin snugged up against the wall sitting at grade level or completely concealed underground. Compact the soil under the basin, then figure out how to pass the included 1-1/2” flexible PVC either under or through the vertical wall. Depending on the depth and the wall construction, a 2” hole may need to be drilled. Plumb the pipe to the Basin using the included fittings and install the pump in the Basin.

Remove the top course or cap directly above the basin, wide enough for your Spillway or Colorfalls, or drill a 2” hole for each Spout. Install the spillway or Spouts following the instructions and replace the cap, caulking rather than cementing or gluing the stones above the spillway to provide access for future maintenance. Fill up and plug in. If the Basin is set at grade in front of the wall, hide it with a 16″ high wall of the same or contrasting stone.

Get Paid

The time these features take varies by size and complexity, with the most complicated installs requiring excavation behind the wall to pass the tubing and perhaps core drilling two or three 2″ holes for Wall Spouts, but they usually take a day or less for a two man crew regardless. The outlay costs are modest. Even the large 36” Colorfalls or Spillway with the 36” Basin Kit runs less than $1800 MSRP (I assume you know your multiplier) plus 1.5-2 man days.

With the going rate at around $4000-$5000 for the completed project in most markets, electrical service not included, this is a moneymaker. If you chose wisely, there will be no question about how or when you get paid, just smiling faces all around. Not a bad day’s work, all things considered, especially off-season. And we’ve haven’t even begun to talk Lighting, the other great add-on – that’s for next time. Meanwhile, get out there and start mining!