Has Anyone Painted an EPDM Liner?

[DC1346]

I am closing on the purchase of a new home on April 7th and hope to break ground on a new pond before the end of next month. This will be the 3rd pond I've ever constructed ... so I'm pretty comfortable with the entire construction process and have a solid understanding regarding pumps and the use of a mechanical/UV filter.

With this being said, has anyone painted an EPDM liner before? I'm only thinking about painting the upper edges so that the top portion that comes out of the water will look a bit more natural. I realize of course, that paint can flake and that some types of paint could be toxic to fish ... so I was thinking about using something like a non-toxic rubberized paint in various shades of brown.

I realize of course, that painting an EPDM is cosmetic with only short term benefits. Once the perimeter of flagstones and boulders is in place and the plants have had an opportunity to mature and grow, the black lining will not be as obvious.

Pictured below is my last pond which was in southern Arizona. The water mint in the background had grown out of the pond and was spreading up a planter. Wild grass had also started growing on this planter and I was surprised to find that the root system had gotten into one of my bog gardens and was apparently doing a great job distributing water because the grass on top of the planter was lush and green, even through the peak of summer when the temperature soared above 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Does anyone have any thoughts about painting pond liners with non-toxic acrylic rubberized paint?

 

[Smaug]

Paint on rubber. Naw

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Any coating applied to EPDM other than possibly a liguid EPDM would, by adhering, weaken the EPDM liner. Something that you do not want to do.

 

[DoDad]

http://www.rock-on-a-roll.com/?gcli...CkKnVY2tIIbbhy7sTdq0lGPrAqlvOCVvBFhoCBuDw_wcB

 

[Lisak1]

If you construct your pond edge correctly , you shouldn't even see any liner.

 

[morewater]

You'd be better off in digging out the perimeter of the pond, creating a wide, shallow shelf upon which your perimeter stones can be placed. The liner is then pulled up behind the placed stones and gravel compacted around the liner, holding the liner in an upright position.

By doing this, the stone perimeter is immersed in water which creates a natural edge.

You cannot paint an EPDM liner, period.

 

[DC1346]

You cannot paint an EPDM liner, period.

For the sake of share obstinacy, I must point out that I COULD in fact do this. Nothing actually makes me want to do something more than being told that I can't do it. I'm sort of like a bull that way. Being told that I can't do something is like waving a veritable red flag in front of a bull.

This is incidentally how I wound up in education. My father wanted me to go to law school and told me NOT to become a teacher ... and so I became a teacher.

I became a Republican because he was a Democrat.

After giving up on teaching after a 17 year career (due to concerns about our current teach-to-the-test mentality), my father told me NOT to go to Culinary school ... and so I did. He told me NOT to work in the food service and so I did. He told me NOT to buy a B&B Inn and of course I HAD to do this.

After working 360 days out of 365 in 2005 (with 84 hour weeks) my father told me to buck up and keep running the inn. I closed it and went to work in a restaurant. After being told to "stay put" and to advance up the ranks, I quit my job, moved to the southwest, and began working as the chef instructor of a high school Culinary Arts program.

It's not just my father who has made me see red. Back when I was an elementary teacher in Texas, a spineless building administrator told me NOT to interact with a group of High School delinquents who had cut class to smoke on the elementary playground. I subsequently marched up to these kids and told them to put out their cigarettes. When they refused, I reached out with two hands and plucked cigarettes out of two mouths. The cigarettes were dropped and were ground underfoot.

When the young men stood up with clenched fists, I noticed that both of them were much larger than me. I told them that Texas has a "stand your ground" law and that if either of them laid a hand on me, I would be justified in defending myself. Win, lose, or draw, I'd also call the police to press charges. The two thugs looked at each other, sneered at me, and sauntered off campus ... and I was written up by the elementary school principal for "gross insubordination." It probably didn't help that I called him a gutless weenie who was too intimidated by the parents of these boys to actually enforce school rules and district policy.

In Lebanon, whilst driving along the Lebanese-Syrian border, I came across an unmanned border checkpoint. My friend told me not to cross the border and so of course I had to drive into Syria. Sadly while trying to drive back across the border, I returned to find that the checkpoint was now manned. A member of the moukbarat, Syrian secret police, had the two of us face down on the pavement with AK-47's pointed at the back of our heads. He screamed and ranted and accused us of being CIA spies. We survived by apologizing and offering him $20 in U.S. currency as baksheeh, a bribe.

I have bungee jumped off the bridge that spans the river below Victoria falls (connecting Botswana to Zimbabwe) because another tourist suggested that a person "your age" ought not to be bungee jumping off the bridge.

I served in a volunteer fire company for two years because someone told me that as an innkeeper, I was much too busy to be a volunteer and that I shouldn't volunteer.

There are several other instances of my resisting "don't do this" episodes in my life. I have the scars to prove this.

You cannot paint an EPDM liner, period.

I can feel my hand edging towards a paint brush even as we speak.

Heh-heh-heh

 

[Meyer Jordan]

If you have already made up your mind, why ask the question?

 

[EricV]

If you construct your pond edge correctly , you shouldn't even see any liner.

Is there a thread on tips for this? This is one of my biggest worries regarding my upcoming build. I'm planning on a natural (not formal) pond but have decided against a rock and gravel lined pond. (I plan to have some rocks in the shallows to hide the edge, but not the complete covering advocated by some builders.)

 

[morewater]

Okay.

Use an oil based paint, use a roller.

Better yet, get a mig welder and paint it electrostatically.

Use hair dye, an ash blonde would look nice.

Do what you will..........................

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Is there a thread on tips for this? This is one of my biggest worries regarding my upcoming build. I'm planning on a natural (not formal) pond but have decided against a rock and gravel lined pond. (I plan to have some rocks in the shallows to hide the edge, but not the complete covering advocated by some builders.)

Any submerged surface will quickly be covered with a beneficial layer of periphyton. A nice carpet of green. This also applies to any rock or gravel. The only real justification for using rock and gravel in a pond is to increase surface area and provide habitat for small aquatic organisms. Rock and gravel do noticeably augment the eco-system of a pond.

 

[EricV]

Any submerged surface will quickly be covered with a beneficial layer of periphyton. A nice carpet of green. This also applies to any rock or gravel. The only real justification for using rock and gravel in a pond is to increase surface area and provide habitat for small aquatic organisms. Rock and gravel do noticeably augment the eco-system of a pond.

Right, but many of the designs I've seen have a few inches of non-submerged liner. And one of my neighbors with a pond has a lot more than a few inches and flagstones lying on top of it. It's truly hideous so I want to make sure I don't make the same mistake.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

This is a diagram of the method already suggested by others.

 

[EricV]

Just so I am not missing anything, the end of the liner is sandwiched between the top and 2nd to top stones in each of those drawings?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Yes, that is the method the diagram shows. The liner can also be brought further up, folded back and concealed with sod, gravel or decorative non-organic mulch.