Examples of Bad Liner Pond Construction

Buy lotto tickets with your hard-earned cash. Put your hard-earned money into the slot machines at the casinos. Don’t bother buckling up in the car. Then it would be best if you had a pond liner. You enjoy taking risks and giving little thought to the possible outcomes. After all, someone who invests thousands of dollars in a liner pond is gambling with their money. When or if their pond liner breaks. After 26 years in the pond industry, I can confidently say that the odds are stacked against you. The guys at the liner pond would instead. You didn’t read this story. This letter would not be needed if you stopped smearing my profession.

The “Liner messiah,” who publishes his magazine and catalog, uses “Build a Liner Pond Day” to gain new converts by demonstrating how simple it is to obtain expensive materials at a minimal cost. So, here’s what it is that they do at liner ponds:

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Create the pond’s outline using a yard hose.

o Dig the hole and take out the sod.

Just insert our risk-free liner!

Put water in it.

Drop in our gas tank

Put our pipe to use

Toss a section of our liner onto the waste soil heap.

Affix to our filter

o Use loose rocks to conceal dirt pile

o Activate our generator

Put your fish in the water.

o Get your money together and divide it.

Am I possibly being too critical of the pond liner business? Finally, we get to hear “the rest of the story.”I’ll include some extras that the liner pond builders forgot:

The Squirrel Family

A.o. Gophers

o Mice

o Rats

o Chinchillas

“o Moose”

Pointy rocks

Strong stones

o Rockslides

o Needless dangers

Roots of a Tree

Seeds of plants and weeds

o Drain seal has a leak

o Skimmer seal with a leak

Children playing with weapons

When any of those things happened to your pond, did the liner pond guy offer you a discount? If any of these had occurred in your brand-new liner pond, here’s what you would have had to do (and trust me, the Liner Guy didn’t offer you this list):

o Get rid of the fish

o Disable the water pump

Loosen and remove the rocks (I’m hoping you didn’t use too many).

Get the pond pumping!

Put the pump away

o Discard the liner

o Lay the liner out on the grass.

· Get rid of the grime and algae

Check the entire lining for any leaks or tears.

(Sure, there are shortcuts, but you might get a little annoyed if you discover that there was more than one hole after patching a hole and putting everything back together. Remember that a leak the size of a pinhead can waste five gallons of water daily.

o Mend the breach or breaches

o Do everything again, but this time in reverse order.

Is that a familiar phrase? After digging a hole and laying out the garden hose, your new water feature should be ready.

If it had been done correctly, all the time and effort spent dismantling and reassembling it could have gone into planning and constructing something more permanent out of steel and concrete.

Can you picture this happening on a construction site when massive rocks had to be placed using a crane or end loader? Not to mention the flower beds, shrubs, trees, pathways, and hardscapes already there! Tearing out a liner pond and replacing it with a professional one created with rebar and concrete might add up to 30 percent to the original cost. At the same time, it would have only cost roughly 20% extra if they had hired professionals to construct the waterfall and pond from the start. Do you know what it means to be “penny wise and pound foolish?”

Be cautious and do your homework before you break down and cry. Peaceful and joyful koi.

CEO of Aquamedia Corp and master waterfall builder, architect, engineer, writer, author, and builder of over 1,900 waterfalls and ponds in California for 26 years, Douglas C. Hoover. Developed the electronic AquaFill water level control system with water features such as ponds, pools, fountains, and spas.

linda