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Old 15-05-2012, 09:57 PM
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Hello all, I am sure you all have answered this question until you are sick of it but I need as many opinions as I can get in the next 24 hours. I have just had a pond installed. Five foot water fall falls in to 8x10 small pond which feeds in to 30 foot streams and goes in to larger 12x20 pond. It has been running for about 3 to 4 weeks. My husband and I and the pond builder felt early on there were leaks. Liner is overlapping in several places (bottom of falls, mid stream, where stream joins big pond etc) Each test has shown there to be leaks at each over lapping spot. Now my builder says they have “fixed” each leak (waterfall foam) at each joined spot. Pond still looses 3 inches every 24 hours if the auto-fill water is turned off. If the auto-fill in not turned off it runs, I would estimate, 45 min of every hour, near constant but it does shut off for a few minutes at a time. Soooo my question is this. I want to be reasonable and fair to my builder but at the same time don’t want to be played for a fool and lied to. He says due to water fall splashing and evaporation this is a normal amount of water loss, and is just something we need to deal with. If we turn the auto-fill off within 8 hours the pump will be sucking air due to water level droping. We are in NorthTexas but the highs have been any where 60s to mid 80s since the pond has been installed. I would expect in our hot summer time more evaporation but now?? Please give me advice as he wants to meet tomorrow and settle on payment and so forth and be “finished” with this job.
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Old 16-05-2012, 04:55 AM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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My thoughts for what they are worth:

Three inches seems a lot! How many gallons would that be? My calculation
is that 3 inches on your 12 x 20 pond would be very close on 450 gallons a
day. That is about 18 gallons per hour! That seems an unbelievable rate f
or evaporation, even from waterfalls!

You can check on the pond leaks pretty easily by stopping the flow and moni
toring whether the two ponds lose water at the same rate. If they do not,
one is leaking.

The streams and falls are harder. However, if you have leaks of that magni
tude (18 gal per hour), I suspect you would be able to see the puddles or e
ven the moisture in sand. Did you see them before the repairs? 500 gallon
s should show up somewhere!

We sealed our liner overlaps with roofing sealer not foam. The roofing sea
ler is designed to join liner (pond liner is the same as roofing). Foam is
rigid and subject to cracking, etc if not between rigid items like rocks.
Roofing sealer looks like tar and works like crazy.

Overall, I would be amazed at 18 gal/hour evaporation. I would search like
mad for leaks. Ponds first, then, starting from the bottom, add one link
at a time to see about loss of water. I would not sign off on the project
until I was sure about the 450 gallons per day loss. I would make him sign
a statement that he declares there to be no leaks, that 500 gallons per da
y is normal evaporation and that he will repair all leaks if that turns out
not to be the case. Unless you have a well, 450 gallons a day will surely
cost you an arm and a leg.

Best of luck!

Let us know how it turns out.

Jim

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Old 16-05-2012, 10:46 PM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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On Tue, 15 May 2012 22:55:13 EDT, Phyllis and Jim wrote:

Overall, I would be amazed at 18 gal/hour evaporation. I would search like
mad for leaks. Ponds first, then, starting from the bottom, add one link
at a time to see about loss of water. I would not sign off on the project
until I was sure about the 450 gallons per day loss. I would make him sign
a statement that he declares there to be no leaks, that 500 gallons per da
y is normal evaporation and that he will repair all leaks if that turns out
not to be the case. Unless you have a well, 450 gallons a day will surely
cost you an arm and a leg.


I agree with Jim, this is a lot for evaporation. You might get that
much on a windy day, wind causes more evaporation than heat since it
blows the water vapour away allowing more to rise from the water. Foam
isn't a good sealant for pond liner and I'm not even certain it will
stick properly. You need to use a proper liner adhesive.

Look for wet areas as Jim suggests. Were the ponds made from one piece
of liner? If not a leak in the join is going to be hard to locate in
which case Jim's idea of turning off the pump(s) is good. See if the
pond level drops to a point where it stops dropping , if this happens
that's the level of the leak. See if you can lift the liner at the foam
joins to see if they are properly sealed. The adhesive has to go right
to the edge of the liner otherwise capillary action will still suck
water out where the liner isn't stuck.

I would be really interested to hear how you get on with this.

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please send any emails to the address below
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Old 16-05-2012, 10:46 PM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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On Tue, 15 May 2012 22:27:44 EDT, Texas Newbie
wrote:

Please give me advice as he
wants to meet tomorrow and settle on payment and so forth and be
“finished” with this job.


I have a pond with a waterfall. It loses some water when the waterfall
is running but not when it's switched off. All the loss is due to the
water splashing out of the waterfall. If it was a leak or anything
else then it would lose water when switched off.

Steve

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Old 17-05-2012, 05:13 PM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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Following up a bit on my own post:

Our pond setup has a 12 x 22 main pond, three upflow barrels, three berm po
nds totalling 9 x 8,two 4 ft waterfalls and two streams of about 10 ft each
.. In the hottest summer, it will lose a half inch in a day. That is 1/6 o
f what you are losing. I don't see how we could lose three inches in a day
without a leak.



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Old 17-05-2012, 05:14 PM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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On 2012-05-16 11:46:15 -0500, Stephen Wolstenholme said:

On Tue, 15 May 2012 22:27:44 EDT, Texas Newbie
wrote:

Please give me advice as he
wants to meet tomorrow and settle on payment and so forth and be
“finished” with this job.


I have a pond with a waterfall. It loses some water when the waterfall
is running but not when it's switched off. All the loss is due to the
water splashing out of the waterfall. If it was a leak or anything
else then it would lose water when switched off.
Steve


I had that same problem, the level unchanging for a week at a time with
the waterfall off, going down a couple inches in as many days with it
on. It seemed an inordinate amount to just chalk it up to evaporation.
Also, I hadn't had the problem in prior years. It turned out to be the
buried, flexible hose from the pump to the falls had sprung a leak. It
would seem that there are low points where water could accumulate. Over
the winter, I suspect it froze and burst the hose. There were no wet
spots on the ground to give this away -- it just took some detective
work and some digging to find the problem.
--
Bill
"Wise Fool" -- Gandalf, _The Two Towers_
(The Wise will remove 'se' to reach me. The Foolish will not)

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Old 17-05-2012, 11:32 PM posted to rec.ponds.moderated
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On 5/15/2012 9:27 PM, Texas Newbie wrote:
Hello all, I am sure you all have answered this question until you are
sick of it but I need as many opinions as I can get in the next 24
hours. Now my builder says they have “fixed” each
leak (waterfall foam) at each joined spot.


I'm past the 24 hour response deadline but there's your problem ---
overlap/foam. Not the way this is supposed to be done. Did you check
references and see other similar style ponds/falls constructed by this
contractor?

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