ReSealing a concrete pond.. How?

[texmaster]

Hi all

We have a 2 pond system. Our upper pond has no fish friends and cascades down to the lower pond. Recently our above ground pond began to leak so I've drained it and found the old painted liner I had in there coming apart so its time to reseal it.

Not exactly sure how to though. There are a TON of products on the market. I even found a 200 dollar gallon of rubber paint but I don't want to keep doing this every 5 years.

The lilipads were out of control. I had no idea they had starting spawning on the bottom of the pond! The roots were over an inch thick!

Some pics



Do I need to rent a power washer to get off all the old liner and what should I use to replace it with once and for all?

I can't use a traditional liner because of the piping or I would!

 

[Fishylove]

Well a rubber liner will last in excess of 15 years I think. I'd check into that rubber paint or something like it, don't see why it wouldn't last for years before needing to reapply. The rubber caulking I used to seam my liners together was made for roofs ( basically liquid rubber in a tube) and can withstand water and sun.

 

[Waterbug]

Rubberizeit would be one choice, but there are others (almost endless). Lots of YouTube videos showing it used.

There are 2 weak links with all of the flexible coating products.

Bond
The products themselves are very tough and can last for many years, but if it doesn't stay stuck to the wall you can have a failure. The warranty on these products is on the product, not the bond to the wall. It's kind of implied that if the bond fails it's because the product wasn't installed correctly. Catch-22.

If you do a search you'll read about people talking about delamination which is the bond failure either to concrete or a previous coating or even in between coatings of the same material. The issue is moisture in the concrete or moisture between coatings. These products simply don't stick to water. So everything can look good for awhile and then slowly fail.

Air in the concrete can be trapped between the concrete can coating and form tiny blisters that can cause leaks. The air can also be from the product itself out gassing as it cures.

If you wanted to have the best chance at the longest trouble free coating you would have to do a proper install. That means all the current coating would have to be removed and that could mean having to sand blast the concrete to get to surface the new coating could bond to. Most coatings would need a primer and then several coats of the coating and there are normally special instructions for the pipes. You have to follow the instructions exactly. These aren't just paint on type deals they appear to be in the ads. You have to read the fine print.

Structure
The underlaying structure has to be sound, no visible cracks, for any coating to work. While these products can stretch there are limits. Your structure looks sound from the pictures, but when you prepare the surface if you see cracks you might want to rethink.

Suggestions
Because your water feature isn't very large one thing you can do is embed fiberglass mesh into the coating. This is normally done just around pipes, but you could do this everywhere for not too much extra $$$. And instead of just sealing around the base of pipes go ahead and run the coating, with mesh, over the entire pipe. The idea is to make a complete liner that even if it did delaminate it would still whole water. You still have to be very careful in following the product instruction for in between coats or each coat can delaminate from the previous.

Other than flexible type coatings another choice is a cement and sand (mortar) coating like they apply to swimming pools. You'd still have to sand blast or chip off the current coating to get to bare concrete first. A cement coating isn't flexible of course. Flexible coatings do allow for a bit more movement, but imo this is way, way, less than most people seem to think. A cement layer has an advantages of being cheaper and easier to fix down the road.

Most people just keep adding different goops and hope for the best. They get varying results, but normally not too good.

 

[brandonsdad02]

Kinda hard to see where the piping would be a issue but you can do wonders with a rubber liner and piping.

 

[Craig58]

My two cents would be to go with fiberglass. You can DIY if you're handy. Lots of vids out there on it. You might be better off hiring a professional however. Fiberglass can be hazardous to your health if you aren't careful and have the proper masks and equipment.

You might spend your time to prep the surface as best as possible for the fiberglass guy. Surface prep is crucial in almost any rehab job of anything. And often the most labor intensive. You pond doesn't look to big so it might be the best approach.

Craig

 

[crsublette]

Interesting thread. Thanks Texmaster for introducing this.

My two cents.

A fella on koiphen, named Birdman, runs a kind of a, guess ya would call it, a pond business for the serious hobbyist, in otherwords he does not sell the gimmicky stuff you often see in pond businesses. He also has a good thread talking about the "Rubberize It" product, that Waterbug mentions, and has pictures on how it can seriously stretch; it is actually amazing how far it can stretch so I would think it would take more than a simple crack to cause this stuff to tear open. Birdman also sells a "drop in liner" where the liner literally fits your pond like a glove, so no overlapping nor liner folds, after you give him very thorough dimensions of your pond; he actually outsources someone to make the liner and then he will sell ya the final product. As Brandonsdad mention, you can do quite a bit with a liner by simply cutting a hole in the liner then reattach the pipe and then sealing the area around the piping; if the pipe can not be reattached, you can cut and rethread the pipe for a union so you can do this. I think Birdman works through the private message on koiphen; I am not for sure since I have never done business with him, but I have always read very high regards for the guy, his DIY threads are awesome, and I am told he is a very reputable koi guy that sells koi, special pumps, and various other stuff for the serious ponder.

I would definitely give heed to the advice about paying all of your elbow grease to do the surface prep work and following the instructions to the letter if you do not want problems 5 years or more from now.

A picture of the potential problematic plumbing would help to give a more complete picture to better mold the advice given to you.

 

[texmaster]

Kinda hard to see where the piping would be a issue but you can do wonders with a rubber liner and piping.

Its mainly because I can't get the liner underneath the fountain and go up the wall because the piping goes into the wall halfway up so I would have to cut it. Believe me I wish I could!

 

[texmaster]

Interesting thread. Thanks Texmaster for introducing this.

My two cents.

A fella on koiphen, named Birdman, runs a kind of a, guess ya would call it, a pond business for the serious hobbyist, in otherwords he does not sell the gimmicky stuff you often see in pond businesses. He also has a good thread talking about the "Rubberize It" product, that Waterbug mentions, and has pictures on how it can seriously stretch; it is actually amazing how far it can stretch so I would think it would take more than a simple crack to cause this stuff to tear open. Birdman also sells a "drop in liner" where the liner literally fits your pond like a glove, so no overlapping nor liner folds, after you give him very thorough dimensions of your pond; he actually outsources someone to make the liner and then he will sell ya the final product. As Brandonsdad mention, you can do quite a bit with a liner by simply cutting a hole in the liner then reattach the pipe and then sealing the area around the piping; if the pipe can not be reattached, you can cut and rethread the pipe for a union so you can do this. I think Birdman works through the private message on koiphen; I am not for sure since I have never done business with him, but I have always read very high regards for the guy, his DIY threads are awesome, and I am told he is a very reputable koi guy that sells koi, special pumps, and various other stuff for the serious ponder.

I would definitely give heed to the advice about paying all of your elbow grease to do the surface prep work and following the instructions to the letter if you do not want problems 5 years or more from now.

A picture of the potential problematic plumbing would help to give a more complete picture to better mold the advice given to you.

Looks like great stuff! The other stuff I was looking at was pond armor but they claim one coat is enough.

 

[texmaster]

My two cents would be to go with fiberglass. You can DIY if you're handy. Lots of vids out there on it. You might be better off hiring a professional however. Fiberglass can be hazardous to your health if you aren't careful and have the proper masks and equipment.

You might spend your time to prep the surface as best as possible for the fiberglass guy. Surface prep is crucial in almost any rehab job of anything. And often the most labor intensive. You pond doesn't look to big so it might be the best approach.

Craig

I would like to but what about ground shifting? This area in Dallas has a ton of clay and we get a lot of movement.

 

[crsublette]

Tex, look at that thread I hyperlinked. Look at how the rubberizeit stretches without tearing. How much do you think your ground will actually shift ??

Personally, I would stay away from the easy, only one layer, easy town applicators since it sounds like they are probably sacrificing the thickness quality of the material. I would not want to have to come back, revisit to fix the problem again.

I put down 2 layers of ponder liner over my underlay material for my little watergarden to hopefully reduce any degradation problems and to make it thicker so it is tougher to pierce.

 

[Craig58]

I would like to but what about ground shifting? This area in Dallas has a ton of clay and we get a lot of movement.

If the ground shifts that much I'd expect the concrete to crack and shift before the fiberglass. Fiberglass would be relatively easy to repair.

And if you water your clay, you can avoid the gound shifts. I know many homes in the dallas area water their foundation soils to prevent the shifting. You might want to do the same around the pond. Maybe a simple soaker hose buried around the concrete base set on a timer during the summer?

Craig

 

[crsublette]

And if you water your clay, you can avoid the gound shifts. I know many homes in the dallas area water their foundation soils to prevent the shifting. You might want to do the same around the pond. Maybe a simple soaker hose buried around the concrete base set on a timer during the summer?

Don't mean to go on a tangent. I have a few farm fields with a soil base that is full of clay. The clay expands and retracts like crazy; retracts so hard that soil clods imitate rock and these clods can be the size of bowling balls that will not break even when a 19 ton tractors sits on it, but simply adding a little bit of moisture causes it to expand enough to split the clods. Yeah, that makes sense about the foundation. Ya wouldn't want a foundation to retract too much nor expand too much. I've heard of the Dallas homes having problems mainly when it doesn't rain much causing the older foundations to retract far too much. Clay soil is crazy and really do hate the stuff in my fields since it can increase my irrigation overhead from the extra maintenance. Anyways... thought i'd share.

 

[Craig58]

Yes, that seems to be a problem in some areas. From what I've heard Texas seems to have the most issues with foundations built on soils of mostly clay. Not a problem in my area. As I understand it, the clay kind of works like ice in the north. It's constant drying out and expansion when wet causes the foundations to buckle. So people in these areas often add a soaker hose system around the foundation, sometimes with a soil moisture sensor that automatically turns on the hose at a certain dryness. No reason you can't do something similar. Soaker hose is pretty cheap. Bury it around the base of the wall and put it on a timer to run for 15 min each morning in the dry seasons. Or whatever time frame works. With the soaker hose buried, it shouldn't use up a lot water.

Craig