I'm building a pond - is my plan ok?

In light of the latest incoming data (visual checks of the pond), I'm not yet giving up on the current design. The water level has ceased to drop further. Its remained half full for hours now. Puzzled, I then suddenly remembered that I had deliberately not cemented the very bottom properly, in case it rained before I was finished. I did get impatient yesterday and chucked some dry cement mix into the bottom though.

I suspect what's happened is when I've filled it up, the dry mix has obviously got wet, but until it was drenched right through, it will not have been watertight. However once saturated, it will have become normal cement mix, and will become watertight. This theory is backed up partly by the sad sight of an earthworm that appeared in the very bottom of the pond some time after I'd started filling it. It could only have came through the very bottom because the rest of the pond is lined with newspaper and cement.

I'm sure there are still leaks, but I expected that. When it eventually dries out again, I intend to mix an extra sloppy batch of cement, paint that onto old newspaper, and stick said newspaper on, sort of like paper mashy/cement hybrid (which I believe is called 'papercrete'). Then test it again, and if it proves watertight then, I might paint the whole thing with some form of non-toxic waterproof paint (if there is such a thing), or I might not, depending on what it looks like.

 

Last time I bought a pond liner they were doing a "special" which included the underlay ... iuf you decide to get a liner might be worth seeing if you can blag the underlay too

Carpet would do, but the underlay is easy to work with and thinner (which helps in that you just lay strips across the pond and don't have to worry about any thickness-effect of overlapping it)

If you find your pond does leak I would just line it with underlay / liner. You concrete pond, once lined, will work 10x better than a pond just dug in the ground and a liner chucked in.

Another alternative is a bitumen-type paint (it probably isn't bitumen at all but there will be some proprietary concrete-sealer paint you can get)

 

Hiya C1.

Sorry, but I would cut my losses now and put in a liner. However, should you decide to carry on, probably the best sealer would be this .

 

catching up on this project.

 

In less than 24 hours, almost all the water has gone. I expected some leaks, but my earlier optimism has gone, having realises that probably the only reason it held any water at all is because the clay subsoil under the pond has reached its water holding capacity for now.

I'm in two minds now whether to bite the bullet and spend money now to get it finished, or put the project on ice again for a while.

 

Worth checking the price of some liner? Might be more affordable than you think?

 

Liner is the only viable option at this point. I've already priced it up and its not bad at all. About £90 for what I need (underlay not included). That's not much, but I still have to buy all the fencing to go round it, and pumps and plants and things, and I don't know if I can justify the expense at this point in time.

I did have an idea for the fence. Seeing as its going to be the beach garden (the pond will be the sea, and a square floor will be made up of sand and pebbles), I'm going to head down the beach and look for suitable driftwood sticks, and have a go at a very crude sort of stick fence. It might look good, and it wont cost me anything.

 

I've just ordered a butyl liner off ebay. 3.1m x 2.48m in size. I measured up, and that should be plenty (its a tiny pond).

Its only costing £56.

I haven't told wife yet. It'll just sort of turn up I guess. Still, I'm taking her out to get some ice cream in a minute so everything will be fine.

 

I never do that

 

I never do that either

 

you are soooo naughty. Still, we ladies have a tendency to "find" things on the doorstep when we get home occasionally,
Jenny

 

My pond liner arrived today, even though I wasn't expecting it til next week.

Anyway, I've now 'fitted' it, and tested it, and it seems excellent. Following good advice from several of you on this thread, I kept most of the cement lining in place, just smashing off a few areas that were a bit rough or I was otherwise unhappy with.

I then lined the whole thing with several layers of old newspaper. The liner was wrapped in a protective fleece like material. Not enough to do the whole thing, but enough to further pad/line some of the sharper corners, so I put that in too.

I then put the liner roughly in place and started the hose on it. As it sunk under the weight of water, I carefully kept shifting it so that it dropped into all the nooks and crannies properly. Smooth, rounded rocks were used to weigh it down onto the ledges I'd put in. Then I let the hose loose entirely and just left it to fill.

Its great, but then as it filled to the top, a thought struck me for the first time (ok, I've had thoughts before, but I mean its the first time this particular thought came). There's about 5 square metres of surface area there that will collect rain, and once full, that's about 5 extra square meters collecting water to run off. In a good downpour, that would be quite a lot of water pouring into one spot, wherever the pond spills over from. I had to give some brief thought as to where I want any run-off to go. So, with the hose still running, causing overflow, I watched where the water went. Some set off for next door. Not good. Some set off and poured right into a bed where I grow a few strawberries and stuff, and that would be prone to flooding given that it also gets the run-off from the blowaway roof. So I had a wander round, found the perfect escape point, and made very slight alterations under the lining at that point, so now it will spill over into the area that is going to be the beach.

 

Hiya C1.

You could make a depression and fix in place a short piece of pipe (maybe 1" dia) running into a soak-away. Obviously, this means digging a hole (more work) but it's an easy fix to divert water away. Just a thought....