Notes:
When filling first begins, start slowly. The pumps should be kept on idle until kinks in the fill hoses can be addressed. It is possible that the hoses will be kinked, and must be massaged until the kink comes out and water starts flowing. The end of the inside plastic will have a tendency to be pulled down when elevated. The weight of the hose with the water in it will cause it to want to kink and slide down. You may have to unzip it and grab the inside tube to readjust it. Do not get the inside tube caught in the zipper! Do not unzip the AquaDam if it has more than 6” of water inside! You can gently pull on the blue hoses to straighten out kinks inside the AquaDam. You can safely pull out about 5’ of the blue hose. Do it in short pulls, a little bit goes a long way. The hose is approximately 20’ long. Try not to pull out more than necessary to unkink the hose.
The length of the AquaDam remaining on the roll has been marked on top so that you will know how much material is left. Once you are pumping water, you are committed! You cannot move that section of the AquaDam without draining it! You should put the AquaDam out under pressure by having 3-4 people stand behind it, letting it fill until it builds internal pressure, and then letting it out a little at a time. More information on this can be found under the Installation section of our web site. Because there air cannot escape a full closed-ended AquaDam, make sure to “burp” it by walking along the top while it still has less than a foot of water in it, starting at the end with collar and working your way toward the fill hoses. You should burp it again when it has 2’ of water in it. Many water pumps also pump air.
If your area is perfectly flat, you can unroll the entire AquaDam by hand and lay it in position before filling, making sure that each end is at least 3’ high on the wall of the building you want to abut into. The AquaDam can be turned any way that you want, but each end must abut into a building if it is going to be watertight. However, few areas are perfectly flat. If the area is sloped from one side of the AquaDam to the other, something must be used to hold the AquaDam in place or it will try to roll downhill due to the lack of internal water pressure. A human foot, a small pile of fill material, or a couple of sandbags should work just fine to hold the AquaDam in place, depending on the slope.
Once you start adding water, you will not be able to move that potion of the AquaDam because of the weight, so choose the position carefully. Use a measuring tape! When the AquaDam is completely filled, the internal pressure will compensate for the slope and hold it securely in place, even holding back a head of water.
