Brick Built Pond

[jonsynergy]

Hi
I'm building a brick-built pond and I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the general direction of some sound advice or guidance. I don't find any of the plastic liners or prefabricated fibre option very appealing, but I understand that brick built ponds have their own potential problems. I am looking for a way of sealing the brickwork without resorting to plastic (perhaps water-proofed rendering?) and I am keen to do anything I can to prevent or minimise the problems that freezing can cause, such a cracking of the brickwork. Also, I need to figure out how thick the walls need to be to be strong enough - I get the impression from pictures that they need to be as think as the length of a UK brick - 20 cm. Is 10 cm not enough? The pond will be around 3 metres by 1.5 M .. this is not a pond the sun will be setting on Any advice would be very much appreciated. By the way, this is for wildlife to move in - not for fish. We have some very adept heron's around here and anyway, I prefer dragon flies and tadpoles to fish John, Milton Keynes, UK.

 

[GreatDanesDad]

I have never built a brick pond, but I did however just build my using flagstone and mortar. Given the experience on here I am sure someone could shed light on the proper way to protect the bricks from freezing and cracking, but over time it is likely to happen to some degree. I also hated the look of the liner, so my suggestion would be this. Build the outer diameter of your brick walls wider than first planned. Then lay down a liner and lay another wall inside the liner to hide the black or fabric look, then lay flag stone in the bottom ontop of the liner. Very freeze resistant.

 

[slakker]

I was sceptical of the liner at fist, but after a few months, a nice film of algae grows on the surface and it looks great, almost like the natural stone I have all around the ledge. And it is to use and build, so a brick exterior with liner interior instead of a render.

But to your original question of strength, the water pressure is a function of depth not volume of water held. It's approximately 1/2 PSI per foot of water depth. So a 2 feet deep pond needs to hold back incremental 1 PSI of water pressure at the lowest point. So it actually is NOT a lot of pressure per se...

I think the bigger concern would be land shifting and settling due to frost. So if the brick is not sitting on a foundation below the frost line, then the yearly frost cycle could potentially heave and crack the brick wall...

 

[Waterbug]

Using brick I know is very common in the UK and the far east. But here in the US it's almost never done. We use block instead. Never really found out why that is.

There's a build thread here by Whiskey, has a window in the pond and water wheel. I think he used brick, or something close to brick. I don't remember how he water proofed. Worth a look.

Other than that there are some Indonesia based Koi forums, in English, that use this build method a lot.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum John! :wave:

 

[Nepen]

Welcome.

I have a brick's pond. But I used the pond liner though, which is really not bad. I also have another small pond just for wild life too but I have a small fountain in there (and I kept it on coz I like the look of it).

Anyway, I cant tell you about how to seal the bricks, I can only tell you how I built it.