Making a small lined bog, seaming question

[dinm]

Looking to make a lined bog and seam it together with the pond liner, it's a small area, I think probably no more than 3ft of width so I'm hoping seaming shouldn't be that hard or complicated as long as I get it all prepared nice, but some tutorial seem to do things different, so for example here's what Oase, the company that sells much of pond equipment in Europe recommends

FixoFol tape is what I have in Europe, still I'm pretty sure the tape Aquascape sells in the US is the same thing, they look kind of identical. In this video, they apply primer on both sides and on the other liner they apply the seaming tape, from there they just join the liners and peel off the tape. In tutorials by Aquascape and most others I've seen that what they do is apply primer, but seaming tape is applied two times, once on the other liner after applying the primer and once after the liners are joined together. I suppose though this could just be a precaution to use the seaming tape twice, so that the seam is much stronger?

 

[GBBUDD]

I have been in the trades for almost 50 years built many a flat roof with epdm. And all i can say is shame on Oase.

1. you ALWAYS clean the areas to be primed even if they are brand new. That material probably could have sufficed just using water to do so. The area needs to be thoroughly dried .

2. when you have the areas primed and your placing the tape you press it out in the direction you are going , never in reverse that how wrinkles or bubbles are made.

3. if you have never done a seam before i suggest practicing on scrap / And double seaming.

Here is a how to to seaming and how to go a step above and beyond relying on one glue seam

Seaming EPDM liner

Seaming is not difficult but it does require some foresight and thought. Hopefully this list will help you to create a seam that will last for many, many years, issue free. If you can seam your liners in a driveway or somewhere flat that is by far your best option. The method below is how I...

www.gardenpondforum.com

 

[dinm]

I have been in the trades for almost 50 years built many a flat roof with epdm. And all i can say is shame on Oase.

1. you ALWAYS clean the areas to be primed even if they are brand new. That material probably could have sufficed just using water to do so. The area needs to be thoroughly dried .

2. when you have the areas primed and your placing the tape you press it out in the direction you are going , never in reverse that how wrinkles or bubbles are made.

3. if you have never done a seam before i suggest practicing on scrap / And double seaming.

Here is a how to to seaming and how to go a step above and beyond relying on one glue seam

Seaming EPDM liner

Seaming is not difficult but it does require some foresight and thought. Hopefully this list will help you to create a seam that will last for many, many years, issue free. If you can seam your liners in a driveway or somewhere flat that is by far your best option. The method below is how I...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Yeah I just don't have access to cover tape which seems to be what many do as a precaution after the seam. So that's my only worry, but it might work out fine. I'll try on some small pieces first though, and it's also winter so I assume the liner should be heated up a bit for the seam to work better?

 

[GBBUDD]

Yeah I just don't have access to cover tape which seems to be what many do as a precaution after the seam. So that's my only worry, but it might work out fine. I'll try on some small pieces first though, and it's also winter so I assume the liner should be heated up a bit for the seam to work better?

Roofing supplies cover tape is the same and if you watch the videos i sent caulking the joints are advisable that way the caulking has to fail for the water to get to the double sided tape. I have had primers fail for one reason or another. Did it freeze was it old was it a bad batch who knows . But before I put in tons of rock in a pond I build im going g to make damn sure it's done and never being a problem

 

[dinm]

Going to do it in a few days when forecasts start to clear. Barrel I've started cutting up, not going to have much use for it anyway, still I have to dig a bit it seems for it to come out.

Not a big bog filter, but it'll be bigger than this barrel (130g), probably end up about 200g, big enough for the pond though. Not that much of a height difference between pond/bog so at any rate it's going to be a trickle but I will be glad for things to just flow properly without issues. Plumbing I will do over it, I think it should be easy enough to hide with some bigger rocks.

 

[dinm]

Well, the bucket's out. I spent 3 hours, the amount of mud I was in by the end of it, it was like I was in an actual bog. Cutting one large side on the right worked, did it with a drill though which worked better than I thought it would and that itself took some time as a hand saw couldnt be used easily then I started yanking the sides and it was visibly weak so then I got out of it and pulled it out, a seesaw I thought to get before doing it but I'm not sure if that would have worked since I was also going through dirt.

Now I assume I'll have to seam it right along the red line as when I built I ended up cutting a lot of that extra liner. As for caulking, so that's something I might do if it helps. I've also cleaned the liner a bit, but still some work to do there and rocks to remove, but I left it for tomorrow when I finally do everything. It also seems I will have a decent amount of height difference so it might even make some sound when it's done.

 

[dinm]

Did the seaming today, but I don't think went so well, I have a feeling it will not hold. Creases were a big issue, but even after sorting them the old liner was still much harder to deal with, I then applied primer on both bog liner and the old pond liner. The old pond liner is much harder to work with, creases I removed as much I could yet as you can see on the image some were still made their way through, a roller did not help.

I don't have many options now. I'll try to run it tomorrow to see if it holds water or not, but I don't imagine it will. An overlap maybe would work but even that may be a reach as I need some height difference there. Other than that, maybe pumping water from the bog into the pond would work but I don't recall ever seeing someone do that.
.

 

[GBBUDD]

Your right it's not ideal. you have two options at this point . seem over the spots you identified . to start i would take a small brush a prime the wrinkles inside let it dry then use the roller to make the two edges of the primer stick together. or you can take a pair of scissors and cut the bubble of the crease so it glues its self flatter. caulk everything all the edges of the seams. then seam over those bad spot with rounded edge pieces of seam tape or epdm. again you want to use round pieces of repair material , These types of bandaids peal very easy when the have 90 degree corners, take my word for it.

 

[dinm]

I had done the seams earlier today, they adhered pretty well and now those bad spots are no more.

I think I would have had no issues if the pond liner wasn't so hard to work with, heat gun makes it more workable but that doesn't stay for long. I assume this is what people mean when they say PVC liners get brittle over time, I think using a heat gun was actually pretty much necessary for this even to work, just on this PVC pond liner it would not adhere I think without it being a bit warm, not sure how that is for EPDM if they degrade over time or not.

But the liners feel bonded now, it feels firm and it may actually work. I can only hope, but either way I have to set down the rocks and pea gravel tomorrow, from there I've nothing to do but just see if it works.

 

[GBBUDD]

heat gun makes it more workable but that doesn't stay for long. have to be careful with heat they all expand/ grow and epdm especially has a memory and will go back regardless what you do to it. I assume this is what people mean when they say PVC liners get brittle over time,e or not. pvc liners like pools about 10 to 15 years, while epdm 40 years plus

 

[dinm]

Started running it about an hour and a half ago, flows well but whether I'll have leaks or not that's the question. Should show up today if there are.

 

[dinm]

Did the edging for most of it but still going to wait 5-7 days before i do edging on the waterfall. It is looking good, have to get more pea gravel though as my bog is a bit too deep even for Irises or grasses, edges of the pond are going to be nice for annuals though.

Don't think it'll be that hard to deal with a leak if there is one in the seam since it's such a narrow and small pass, it was tough because it's an older PVC liner and PVC molds itself to the shape it's in after some time but once primer bonds them together it seems it's quite tough. I did do a lot of patching on bad parts a few days ago, but as usual I have to wait some time to see if everything's well.