Help or my ponds are going to be turned into a basketball court!!

16 years ago

I have had my ponds for several years now. 2 ponds connected by a stream, all made from EPDM liners stuck together. I even have a waterfall that I have finally gotten to stop leaking.

However, in the years since I have switched my liners from pre-formed to the EPDM liner, I have always had a leak. I've stopped running the water to see which pond goes down, and found that it was in the waterfall. So after 5 tries, I finally got the waterfall fixed.

THEN I have a new leak, in the small pond liner, so I take that out and replace it with a new EPDM liner, then stick the stream liner to the pond liner. Guess what? STILL LEAKING! Its leaking where the two are connected.

I have tried EVERYTHING that I can possibly think of to fix it. This is not a smooth merging of liners by any means. The stream liner comes into the pond and it is all bunched up in some places. There's really nothing I can do to smooth it out. I've tried!

I used double-sided tape to put the two liners together. As soon as the tape got wet, it pulled away, causing the water to leak. I tried making my own patch by putting the double sided tape on a scrap piece of liner and then sticking it onto the pond liner. Same thing happened, got wet, pulled away.

I figured I'd try a real patch, so I bought aa bunch of the Beckett's liner patches and stuck them all over the joints, and then, for good measure, I put patches along the edges of the patches! Got wet, pulled away.

I tried vinyl epoxy glue to try to get it to stick, just fell apart. I got aquarium sealant and put it at the edges of every patch, filling in every hole I could find, gave it 48 plus hours to cure. Some of it pulled away so I went and got AQUAMEND epoxy. It got hard, but didn't do the job.

I went to buy MORE aquarium sealant today and went in my pond to check where I needed to put it, cause it was leaking more than ever. The sealant just pulled away!!

I bought liquid nails waterproof glue, but I haven't used it yet because I don't know if it is safe for my fish. I can't find lap sealant around here anywhere (when I ask roofing places, or frankly anywhere, they look at me like I'm crazy)

What do I do?? I've heard about using cornstarch, but I'm thinking that is for little holes.

Do I hire a professional and pay them thousands of dollars to remove all the huge rocks that I have put all around my pond liner, take up the liner, and do stuff I have already tried, or do I pay somebody a thousand to come fill my ponds with cement and make a basketball court of the damn thing??

Because I have been having nothing but leaking problems with this thing since I got it, and I would love just ONCE, to enjoy a whole summer without having to mess with it!!

HELP!!!!

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Comments (5)

patriciaiowa
16 years ago
I hate to say I had the same problem with leaking nothing sticking. I ended up buying a huge one piece liner covering the whole area and than trimmed off excess. No leaks. That was more money on another one piece liner and the shipping charges but all the quick fixes were adding up. Good Luck
smokeynite
Original Author
16 years ago
Unfortunately, I used my fresh liner to replace my old liner, and now I just have liner segments left over from the excess I cut off. I can't afford to spend another $600 on buying one HUGE liner to cover my 2 ponds and stream.

Do you guys think that the magical Lap Sealant would work? There are places where the liner has a crease and the tape just bows out from there, causing a nice funnel for the water to go down. No amount of pressing or clamping makes the tape stay. What if I just took the lap sealant and rammed it down into the hole and started filling until it came out the top??

Has anyone had any luck with it??
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mike_il
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Smokeynite seaming two pieces of liner together is not easy. Than add the problem that one or both pieces are installed and that makes it harder. I have seamed lots of liners together and from what you discribe you are not going to be able to seam them the way you want to. The first thing that needs to happen is the liner for the small pond needs to be removed so that at least one liner is wrinkle free. Using just the double sided tape is not going to work. If you are going to use just one tape than use the 6 inch wide cover tape. You will need a board that is wide and long enough so that the seaming can be done on the board. It helps to have at least two or three sets of hands to get everything laying flat. You will also need some liner primer. It is a littleeasier if you use both the double sided and the cover tape but the cover tape is a must. The cover tape has to be long enough to cover the seam as one piece. The trick is that there can not be any wrinkles in the liner and cover tape or it will leak. I know this is easier said than done. You have to tape along a straight line no curves. I am going to discribe how to seam the liners just using cover tape but if you are going to use double sided tape first just follow the same procedure as the cover tape. Clean at least six inches on each side of the joint of the liner that will come in contact with the tape. Let that dry. Than apply the primer to that area. Let it dry. Now comes the hard part. Start at one end of the seam. With the seam laying on the board get as long a section from where you are starting to tape to lay flat. This may just be a few inches to several feet. Peel just a couple of inches of the protective backing off the tape. Place the tape on the joint so that the joint is right in the middle of the tape and the tape is going straight on the seam. Press the tape to both liner and seal the tape to the liner. Slowly pull more backing off the tape and as you do this slowly press the tape on to the joint. When you get to about one inch from the first wrinkle stop. You can normally remove the wrinkle by moving both pieces of liner and tape in the direction that you started from. Don't worry about wrinkles in the two pieces that are taped together as they will wrinkle the same. Now lay as long a section flat and continue removing the backing on the tape and connecting the joint together. Go to about one inch from the next wrinkle and repeat the previous steps. Do this until the complete joint is made. If you have not allowed a wrinkle to be covered with a flat piece or section of tape the joint will not leak. I know it is hard but it is doable.
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Help or my ponds are going to be turned into a basketball court!!

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patriciaiowa

smokeynite
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Help or my ponds are going to be turned into a basketball court!!

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patriciaiowa

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maktargenie

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mike_il

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