Pond/water feature liners

[Weirdfish]

Planning to make a water feature, basically approximately 4x4mtrs raised with sleepers and a salting slab in the middle with a water fountain coming through the middle, I will get pics up.
My question is, the liner, people have said go with something like Firestone roofing membrane but it seems a bit over the top for a water feature, anyone any experience in this area.
Obviously I need to work out how to support the salting slab without piercing the liner, it’s very heavy.

[Norbert]

You can’t go far wrong using a Buytl lining… you are better buying a quality liner with a good guarantee than scrimping on a cheaper material only to get a puncture or punctures … once everything is in place , you don’t want to start again been there , many years ago & never again .
The thicker grade Butyl is very robust and should take your water feature ok as long as you install the feature etc with respect to the liner .
Make sure you check the prepared site for flints , sharps etc and then place old carpet or carpet underlay on the “ hole etc to be a protective cushion layer under the liner .
This was a tip I was given by a professional installer to help prevent any overlooked sharps getting through.
Good luck , you will be amazed how much soil etc comes out of a small hole !!


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[pete-r]

A fox fell into my pond about 8 years back and clawed the old liner getting out so had to replace it at pace as I was going to lose all the fish.

I did it with butyl sheeting bit doubled it up for resilience as it was cheap, and then cemented it under the top level of bricks on the surround wall.

Touch wood it's been fine.

[sish101]

Always like to see what other people have done with their ponds / water features so looking forward to progress photos.

Shameless link to my pond reworking from last year:

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/top...ink_source=app


Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves

[Weirdfish]

Not much movement on this project as yet, ( garage project is taking priority, as per my other thread ).
Just a couple of pics to show you the idea.
This is the area that needs to be dug out to create the water feature, it used to be the veg patch, I've basically done a sleeper surround with sleepers on top which will hide the edges of the liner, ( they are only loosely fitted at present ).


This is the salting slab/stone that will sit in the centre with a hole drilled in it to allow a pump to create a small fountain of water to then fall back into the main feature, ( well that's the idea anyway ).

The stone/slab is very heavy and I have work out a way of sitting this on supports of some kind on the liner without damaging or puncturing it.

[deanlad]

What a fantastic water feature that will be....with that view as a backdrop. Seriously, rubber EPDM a la Firestone, or a Butyl liner and forget about ever needing to change it. Id be putting a concrete base where you plan on siting the table, under the liner. Lay another ofcut or two on top of the pond liner. I would then build some "L"shaped concrete block supports in the 4 corners. 9" might be too large, 4" could do it, but I/d be inclined to go 6" blocks. Would have plenty of acmes all round for pump and ribbed pipe underneath. Paint the blocks with a rubberised pond paint. G4? There are a couple of other brands out there.
Your table will sit on top at the perfect height you need it at....
Apologies if it comes across as egg sucking...

Sorry, just looked at the stone feature again. I would go 6'" concrete blocks laid flat. iw Ould have 1 stack at each end, and one stack centrally along each side of the longer sides... 4 individual stacks as it where.

Edited again. Just rebuilt a couple of ponds for two seperate clients, 1 Blackheath,! Dulwich village a few weeks back. Haven't had the pleasure of any pond work/water features for a good few years, and then 2 come along at once.For reference, went with Butyl for those.
Plenty of places online, and they'll have the online calculator for working out your size liner. IIRC Width x Length +twice max depth. Think a 6x5M was around £250. Don't forget a couple of offcuts to build on...

[Griswold]

A bit late to the thread, but are you building a pond with straight sides or one with slopes and steps?

If the former then you can buy a pre-formed liner of the exact dimensions which avoids all and any creases. This is what we did....



At around half depth. All sides ended up perfectly straight.






The end result. Liner fits as snug as a bug in a rug. Pictures during and immediately after construction - now full of lilies and fish.

If the latter with sloping sides and steps then ignore the above.

[Weirdfish]

Where did you buy the liner from?

[Griswold]

Where did you buy the liner from?

Cant remember off hand. Will look through my paperwork in the morning. They did made to measure and the liner came with a good quality underfelt. If I remember correctly they catered for shelves too, but we wanted it straight sided and reasonably deep.

[Griswold]

Dug out my info. We bought it from Butyl Products Ltd

https://www.butylproducts.co.uk/prod...nd-liner-shop/

Cost £387 back in 2019. We went for the highest quality liner they do.

HTH

[Weirdfish]

Dug out my info. We bought it from Butyl Products Ltd

https://www.butylproducts.co.uk/prod...nd-liner-shop/

Cost £387 back in 2019. We went for the highest quality liner they do.

HTH

Thank you I’ll take a look

[deanlad]

That’s the beauty of Butyl/EPDM. It can be made to specific shapes if needed, as it can be seem welded.
In the the unlikely event that anything should rip it, it can be repaired DIY with an appropriate size patch of same material and welded. Bit like a puncture repair….

[Weirdfish]

What a fantastic water feature that will be....with that view as a backdrop. Seriously, rubber EPDM a la Firestone, or a Butyl liner and forget about ever needing to change it. Id be putting a concrete base where you plan on siting the table, under the liner. Lay another ofcut or two on top of the pond liner. I would then build some "L"shaped concrete block supports in the 4 corners. 9" might be too large, 4" could do it, but I/d be inclined to go 6" blocks. Would have plenty of acmes all round for pump and ribbed pipe underneath. Paint the blocks with a rubberised pond paint. G4? There are a couple of other brands out there.
Your table will sit on top at the perfect height you need it at....
Apologies if it comes across as egg sucking...

Sorry, just looked at the stone feature again. I would go 6'" concrete blocks laid flat. iw Ould have 1 stack at each end, and one stack centrally along each side of the longer sides... 4 individual stacks as it where.

Edited again. Just rebuilt a couple of ponds for two seperate clients, 1 Blackheath,! Dulwich village a few weeks back. Haven't had the pleasure of any pond work/water features for a good few years, and then 2 come along at once.For reference, went with Butyl for those.
Plenty of places online, and they'll have the online calculator for working out your size liner. IIRC Width x Length +twice max depth. Think a 6x5M was around £250. Don't forget a couple of offcuts to build on...

And there was me thinking I'd buy some black soil/drainage pipe, cut off at the right length, sit it on slabs and fill with concrete, one for each corner.
Good shout regarding concrete base underneath and plenty of offcuts as well.

[Mike2500]

Thread revival as we're planning on creating a large pond in our back garden and would welcome information and advice please.

We won't be keeping any fish in there but it will be set up so any wildlife can escape easily (sloped up or stepped up). A suggested size is in the region of 15m x 5m and will be situated in an already wet soil area of the garden, possibly caused by an overwhelmed 1970s soakaway or split underground pipe so it doesn't reach the soakaway. Hopefully the root cause will be determined once the digging starts.

We've had some estimates in already and in my limited experience, prices are starting just shy of five figures, which seems excessive for what I understand will be four days labour, with a large digger? I presume I'm missing something involved with the process if someone can kindly educate me. I've been reading about liners on here and online and liners are included in the estimates as well as edging but exact type not specified.

Is this something I could realistically do myself, once I've learnt how to use a digger that is or is it genuinely worth asking a landscaper to do the whole job? Alternatively, I do know a ground person who could do the digging for an agreed rate and then could I do the rest?

As always, thoughts and comments greatly appreciated

[Matt8500]

It is pretty easy to do yourself, and driving a digger isn’t hard. If you have the time it is also good fun, and it means you can iterate the design as you go. A few pics of ours as we built it:







How it looks today just under a year later:



From memory total cost was about 2000 including all materials (sand, underlay, liner, rocks and stones etc), digger and skip hire,and the pump, filter and lighting.

[Griswold]

If you're not going to put fish in it then it doesn't need to be very deep at all, 2ft to 2ft6" (in old money) is plenty deep enough and you can easily did it out with a spade so no need to hire a digger. The pics in the post above should give you a good idea how to go about it - but if using a liner always remember to use something soft under it to avoid sharp stones cutting through it once it has the weight of the water in it, old carpet, underlay etc is both fine and cheap.

HTH

[Matt8500]

Agreed, I put a 5cm thick layer of builders sand, then underlay, then the liner. Ours is just under 3 foot deep. A digger was definitely needed with our soil though!

[sish101]

I wish I'd had the space to get a digger in to do mine. The clay in this area is solid and dries like rock.