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[Fredd]

As the topic suggests, whats the best technique for doing this. The example in the wiki left me confused. Frozen walls of ice seems the best starting point,to dig spaces for walls blocking aquifier flows

[SpiralDimentia]

....hm. If you dug a large enougb shaft all the way down, would the aquifer freeze in the winter? Allowing you to dig through it?

[darkflagrance]

^ Yeah, I would tend to think that because of the aforementioned reason, punching thru aquifers in weather where water freezes is trivial.

[Funburns]

The last time I tried this method, freezing water killed both my miners and ate their picks when they stepped down into the channeled pits I told them to dig.

I'm not sure if using stairs is safer, or if miners only kill themselves this way when channeling a wide space in the aquifer, or if I had accidentally zoned something beneath the aquifer layer and my miners briefly stood on the momentarily 0/7 aquifer floor, trying to dig out the lower level in the instant before death seeped onto them and shot their veins through with glassy, solid dihydrogen monoxide like some kind of Kurt Vonnegut novel... It was all so long ago. Try it, maybe you'll have better luck.

[Jelle]

The last time I tried to get through an aquifer of frozen water both my miners were encased in ice. Also I couldn't manage to carve stairs out the ice, it would just leave an open space.

Using layers of soil to drop down into the aquifier was trick to, everytime I made the drop the water would splash upward and freeze midair, creating hanging ice walls several z levels high.

[Nibble]

First, you need to make sure that the area you want to dig through is considered to be "outside." That means that you'll need to channel out all the levels above the aquifer, like so:


Then, you must channel out the area that you want to build stairs in. I usually use 2x2 stairs. for 2x2, the diggers shouldn't step into the aquifer level -- they can dig it out from above. Once the water has frozen, channel out one ring for the wall to surround the stairs, then one more ring after the first has frozen. This will create a protective ring of ice that will keep the water in the aquifer from returning until you're finished. Now, you will need to create the stairs in the middle. You will probably find that if you try to dig stairs, they will turn into water. That's OK -- just build stairs out of rock or wood in the same location. Once you have done that, dig out the first ring of ice around the stairs and construct a wall in its place. This will protect the stairs once the second ring of ice melts in the summer.

When you're finished, it should look something like this:

[JmzLost]

I've only dug through frozen aquifers twice, but I made my designations very conservatively.  I never had 2 active designations right next to each other because dwarfs prefer to dig from the side.  They can dig from above, but given the choice they prefer to dig from the side.  Single tile designations mean they won't step down into the wet tile they just dug, so they won't end up as dwarfcicles.  I would also mark the level with liquid water as restricted, so my miners would not try to path through potentially wet tiles on their way out.

Also, when water freezes it may create an ice wall without an ice floor on top of it.  This can make it difficult to place all of the designations for channeling.

JMZ