Water Gardens Gazette Exclusively for people who want great ponds

How to build a pond starting with pond liner

First of all what is pond liner?

It is flexible polymeric material normally black that comes in sheet form. Many suppliers will cut the length you require from a large roll. Others will supply pre-packed sizes. There are different types of polymeric materials and each is essentially sold on price ...

EPDM rubber ... most popular in USA and one of best pond liner materials. 45 mil is ideal thickness and leading manufacturers are DuPont and Firestone
Butyl Rubber ... very popular in UK with similar properties to EPDM pond liner 500mm is ideal thickness
PVC ... lowest cost normally and don't use less than 300mm
Polyethylene ... cost close to that of PVC and don't use less than 300mm

Before you dig the hole you need to know a few things ...

The hole should be created in such a way it has the right depth ... not less than 2ft and for most garden ponds (I'm not talking seriously large koi ponds) not more than 4 feet.
Include contours in the shape for planting at different level ... eg water lilies prefer deeper water whilst marginal plants prefer less than 6 inches of water.
Don't make the shape or pond design too complicated ... keep to roundish type shapes and designs which will be most visibly pleasing and easiest to maintain
Decide if you're going to have a waterfall because you will excavate a lot of soil and this can be used for waterfall construction
You must provide a base or underlayment or liner underlay to protect the pond liner from sharp stones that tend to migrate up in the soil. You can also use old carpet, and lots of wet newspapers if you need to reduce cost
You will have to spend money on a pond pump, a bio pond filter and almost certainly at some stage an UVC (ultra violet light clarifier to kill green algae that makes pond water go murky) ... do yourself a favour and do it when you first install pond. In fact the best solution is a combined UV and Biofilter and there are quite a few to choose from as you can see below ...

Choose your pond filter ....

Choose your liner

in sizes as follows

13.1'x13.1'
16.3'x13.1'
19.7'x19.7'
19.7'x26.2'
9.8'x13.1'

How To Measure Liner For Your Chosen Pond ... It is easy to make a mistake here so be careful ...

How to measure epdm pond liner Width Of Liner Required

= maximum pond width + depth +depth again + 24 inches for edging both sides

Length Of Liner Required

= maximum pond length + depth +depth again + 24 inches for edging both sides

Diagram showing how to dig hole in preparation for liner ... click the image below to make full size and see detail

You will also be able to read step by step instruction on how to dig the hole when you click this image below ....

click this small image to see it FULL SIZE

Where to find EPDM pond liner in various sizes ...

Tetra supply EPDM liner in 45 mil thickness and different sizes ... its called Xavan

This diagram above along with the instructions is from Peter J May's ... "The Perfect Pond Recipe Book" (reprinted with kind permission of author) which is probably the most practical and useful basic DIY pond building book ever published. You can read more ... just click here to read about Building Perfect Ponds and at $13 it's a steal

vol 504 April 2nd 2005 CONTENTS Download free chapters from my book and how to build a liner pond

In this Gazette you will learn all you need to know to build a garden fish pond starting with pond liner. You will build it in such a way that it will be suitable for both fish and plants. When you've built your pond you need to look after it so download the free chapters from my "The Complete Pond Solver 2005 Book"

How to decide and use pond depth to suit your pond idea

How to install a pond liner for an in-ground fish pond

How to install a preformed garden fish pond liner in ground

How to install EPDM pond liners in ground or above ground ponds

How to Make a Small Pond Filter Bigger ... It's Easy.

How to Work Out the Right Pond Liner Size