Pond Disaster

[DaveAustin]

I bought my house last year and one of the first things I did was build a pond! Daft I know but the weather was glorious and I was waiting for the bathroom suite to be delivered....

It was great with loads of Yorkshire stones around it and a waterfall. Plenty of wildlife too with dragon flies and the like.

Unbeknown to me, after heavy rain, or melting snow in winter, the surface water in the back garden doesn't drain away! Infact its the same in all my neighbours gardens and ours is made even worse by the neighbours on one side entirely flagging theirs, and on the other side they have had to drop tons of earth and hardcore down to raise theirs by a foot or so.

So as mine is lower....you can imagine. Of course I wasn't told any of this. To make it worse I thought the bilge pump at the bottom of the garden (in a buried wheely bin) was for a water feature! Duh.

So anyhow, the water fills the back of my pond liner pushing the liner together effectively causing the water to spill over the top! When the surface water subsides the liner takes back its usual position having lost most of its water.

Repeat this cycle over a month and im left with an half empty pond.

What an idiot.

It will now make a nice rockery when fill it in....

 

[merlin50]

the pond liner should be held down by the stones at the edge, by about 6" or more

 

[DaveAustin]

Thats the thing, it was! Big york stones too.....

But you cant stop the water rising from below the level of the pond up, pushing the liner from underneath.

What i have done now is cut out the liner, the water has filled the hole and in the space of a month is has gone nowhere, must be the clay in the soil acting as a liner,........not sure how it will hold in the summer.

 

[Schmill]

I'm afriad if you DO want a pond, the only choice in this situation is to go for a solid concrete based pond, and you can then cover that with the liner, and embed the edges of the liner into a surrounding wall or similar

 

[Mickymoody]

What a farce, maybe the situation is fictional?

 

[wavetrain]

Sounds made up.

 

[stevebamford]

why don't you raise your garden by TWO feet. Then any excess water will drain into your neighbours garden

 

[Mickymoody]

why don't you raise your garden by TWO feet. Then any excess water will drain into your neighbours garden

You state your neighbours had raised their levels, but you flooded their gardens? When the level in your garden was below the neighbours level?

Curious.