Hi all, I've been lurking here for a while since I recently bought a
house that has a pond. It looked like green soup and it hadn't been
taken care of. It is about 22 feet long and average width is about 6
feet. It's irregularly shaped. Has a bridge, waterfall and some nice
plants around it. But I noticed the liner had holes in it all around
the waterline. So I tried to remedy that by draining, adding dirt
behind the liner to move the holes up above the waterline.Worked for a
while, but one day last week went outside and the pond was EMPTY!!!.
Dont know what happened, but my wife and I decided to redo the whole
pond. By the way, I've heard people say Little Giant Pumps are not
good quality, but this sucker had been running dry for no telling how
long and still works great.
I decided to try Permalon for a liner since I went to Home Depot and
they wanted $12.88 per linear foot of 15" wide EPDM. I called Ken at
http://Kencofish.com and got a 30x15 liner for 180 bucks plus 15 bucks
shipping.
By the way Ken if you read this it didnt take 2 weeks like you feared,
I had the liner on my doorstep in 3 days. The whole liner weighed less
than 40 pounds.
I tested its puncture resistance, it punctured pretty easily with a 6d
finishing nail, but my 250 pounds walking on it with gravel beneath
didnt hurt it a bit. I put down the underlay they sell at Home Depot,
even though my wife only got home with half what she paid for. But
since its an hour round trip and I wanted to get this done we just
lined the bottom. We have very nice sandy soil, so its easy digging
and no rocks. Thats the good part of sand, the bad part is its hard
to make the sides stay put. Thats another reason I tried Permalon,
it's supposed to be self supporting, I hope this will help the sides
stay upright.
The pond was only about 14 inches deep and had no sump for the pump.
This made it a pain to drain, so I deepened up the big end to 2 feet
and dug a channel the length of the pond, so I can put the pump in the
deep end if I ever need to drain it. I also radiused the corner where
the sides meet the bottom, because I had heard the Permalon was stiff.
The liner was easy to work with, but it was hard to get the wrinkles
out around the outside curves, the inside curves were no problem. I
finally said, " no ones going to see the wrinkles once I get the rocks
and water in" and went on with the project.
I trenched around the pond about 6 inches deep and laid the liner in
that and backfilled, then installed the rocks, tons of them it felt
like. I didnt want to dismantle the waterfall, so I left the old
liner in place about 3 foot out from the waterfall. I was able to
work out the big flat bottom ledge rock from the waterfall, and pushed
the new liner way up underneath. I put the big rock back and used
exanding foam to seal it. Thanks to everyone who recommended the
foam, it was a lifesaver.
I had one really tricky spot on the edge, and I'm afraid I just used a
little Southern engineering to get past it. I hope it works. It was a
huge old Pampas Grass clump right on the edge, and the roots had grown
over the old liner into the water. I trimmed it back some, not much,
trimmed the liner to fit around it with enought to double it over, ran
a piece of nylon rope around the whole thing and cinched the liner in
place about 2 inches above the water line. If anyone has any ideas of
a better way, let me know.
There was on old small filter that didnt seem to work very well. I
made my own, thanks to all you guys. I used an old plastic container I
had. Its about 25 gallon capacity. I filled it with 120 pounds of
lavarock, put some hailscreen across that and put quilt batting above
that. The water comes out crystal clear.
So right now I'm looking out my window at clear water cascading down
my waterfall. You guys are all great and I want to tell all of you
thanks for all the information.
My next move will be finishing lining the bottom with river rock, I
ran out today.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated
Roger in Teas