New liner on top of the old one??

[MikeC1955]

Hi all. I'm a rare visitor to the forum, but wondered if I can ask what might be a silly question?

My ornamental 8' x 4' x 3' (deep) pond has developed a leak.....it must be somewhere along the edging as the water stops going down after it's reach around 6" from the top. I've previously found a couple of tears and been able to patch it up in the past, but this time, I think it's time to replace the liner which has been in there for around 12 years.

It's an opportunity to tidy up the groundwork around the pond as well.

My plan is to use the pump to remove as much water as I can, and then to tempt the 2 or 3 goldfish into a net, so I can keep them in a large plastic tub until the work is done. I'll also remove my plants and keep them in a seperate tub.

Once I've removed most of the water, I'm planning to pierce the bottom of the old liner to enable the pond to be completely drained. Then, I'll lift the flagstones that surround it and remove my waterfall fitting to fully expose the old liner.

I'm just wondering if there is any benefit in simply installing a new liner over the old, or am I best just taking the old one out? From memory, there are pieces of old carpet under the current liner and I doubt they'll be in good condition! If the advice is to remove the old liner and old carpet, have things moved on at all in the sense that there is a better solution for "under liner lining" than old carpet (our house is virtually all hardwood floor now, so I'm not likely to have any old carpet anyway!)

I'll eagerly accept any other advice, especially any that offers a solution to the leak without draining the thing!

Thank you in advance of your wise replies

Mike

 

[Pablo]

I will start by saying I do not have any experience with replacing an old liner. But people here would probably say that you would want to be sure what is causing the leak. You do not want to go through all that work and then find out you still have a leak, perhaps from bad edging, pipes, etc (just throwing out possibilities).

There is fabric underlayment now which would be better than carpet. Kind of like heavy duty weed blocker. Plenty of people have used carpet but some people have warned that you have to be careful that the old carpeting does not have any tacks or nails in it.

Probably not a problem to have a new liner over the old one, but might make the edging a little harder around the pond. Can also depend on whether the soil is rocky or has a lot of roots that could poke through, in that case you may want to put new fabric underlayment between the old liner and the new liner. Others here will probably have better advice for you, lol.

 

[Bluerooster]

I had a deer puncture the liner in the goldfish pond. I just dried out the pond, and put the new liner over the old. That was about 10 years ago. Have had no trouble with it.