Pond Buckling

[flyalaska]

I have a preformed 125 gallon pond. I have had for a few weeks now, all the sudden it started to buckle. I have it above ground surrounded by brick. The temps here last week were around 110f. I thought it may be the heat, but the water inside the pond should keep the liner cool enough. Any ideas what causes this?

Eddie

 

[FredrikAnderson]

I would assume that if it is buckling that there is space for it to move in the direction to make it buckle. Gaps behind the brick and such. you may want to remove a couple of bricks at the top (if you don't have any gaps big enough and put sand inbetween the liner and the bricks to remove any dead space behind them that could allow movement of the liner. If you use water as you shovel sand into the void it will help the sand move to the lowest point and it is real easy to fill in all the voids. Hope this might help.

 

[flyalaska]

There is alot of gaps. I just have retaining wall brick going around the pond. So there are gaps between the liner and the brick. I might have to go with the pond liner, and not a preformed liner. Would I beable to use the brick wall as a frame for the liner?

 

[FredrikAnderson]

Yes you could, just a matter of looks. Your liner can work though, you can use sand or dirt to fill those voids, that is what I did. Sand is the easiest because the water just takes it to all the knocks and crannies but dirt works just takes longer.

 

[flyalaska]

One thing I didn't mention. Its buckling in(towards the water)

 

[FredrikAnderson]

how good was your support under the pond because it sounds like the weight of the water is forcing it down and that would cause the sides to suck in a bit.

 

[flyalaska]

I have no support,no sand, etc. Looks like I will have to add some sand. If I drain the pond and pop the dents out and fill the gaps with sand, will it buckle again?

looking at the picture, the buckle is from the 6 o'clock to the 9 o'clock . About 2-4 inches from the bottom.

the pic was taken the day I set it up.

 

[FredrikAnderson]

do those stones go all the way around? I don't know how you would be able to contain the sand with your blocks stacked that way. I was figuring they were being stacked more like this, with a stagger.

This way tends to be less pores and would contain the sand along the walls better. It looks like that is inside so you really wouldn't want to use water to work the sand in but you could easily do it if you poured in the sand as you built up the stone walls. You could do it with a liner as well you would just have to make sure your walls were strong enough to hold back the pressure of the water trying to push them over. You would want to use a self standing retaining wall block that had a locking or keyway system that made it so it could resist the pressure. The blocks in the picture are called Windsor stones and they have such a locking system. There are larger versions of the same that could handle even more force then these. How that helps.

 

[MassKoi]

You may want to configure the blocks a little different to close any gaps. Also, something I didn't do is add landscape fabric to the inside of the block before you add sand. This will allow water to flow through without washing away the sand.
I have attrached a picture of my pond.

 

[gardenplanters]

Hi,
it is buckling that there is space for it to move in the direction to make it buckle. Gaps behind the brick and such. you may want to remove a couple of bricks at the top (if you don't have any gaps big enough and put sand inbetween the liner and the bricks to remove any dead space behind them that could allow movement of the liner. If you use water as you shovel sand into the void it will help the sand move to the lowest point and it is real easy to fill in all the voids. Hope this might help.