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cow2215

help! - trying to diagnose waterfall/pond leaking, not sure where

cow2215
8 years ago


Hi all,

Would greatly appreciate any advice. Our home has a decorative waterfall/pond by the front entry that was installed by previous owners when the home was built ~10 years ago.

Getting it up and running this year, i noticed that it now loses water fairly rapidly, I have measured it as ~1.5gal/hr. The loss only happens when the pump is running, ie if the bottom pool is filled, there is no appreciable water loss if the pump is not running.

We live in MN, my "winterizing" consists of pulling off enough water to have the water level in the skimmer below the return outlet, and removing the pump.


To give some sense of size, the bottom pool is ~3 ft round, and the return hose runs about 10 feet to the top. There are two "falls", thus two flat "run" areas before returning to the bottom pool. Top run has a large flat stone that the liner is foam glued to, bottom run has loose stones (removed). Total drop is ~4 feet.


I thought splashing might be an issue, but loss still occurs even after removing most of the decorative stones and eliminating any splash.

I have also cleared out most of the stones on the two "run" areas, and pulled up the liner at the edges. It looks to be grossly intact, but hard to say that there isn't a small crack somewhere.

The construction of the pond seems to be solid, the liner appears to be one sheet that was attached to the top outlet by screws; the initial outflow at the top is via an overhang so there is no direct running water over the screws.


Towards the bottom, on the lower "run" area, there is a fair amount of folding of the liner, but again unfolding these the liner appears grossly intact. There appears to be a seam running across the direction of water, but this looks to have been rubber glued and appears intact.

I have also exposed the entire return hose. Looks to me like a flexible but hard-walled spa hose, the type that is rated to ~60psi. I have not found any obvious areas of leakage along the pipe even when the pump is running, so I'm pretty confident this isn't the source.



Do I need to just bite the bullet and pull up the rest of the stones (some are heavy!) and replace the liner? Or should I evaluate other areas of failure?

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