My koi and pond maniacs GROUP and I proved this. Simplest easiest method to build a Koi Pond: You dig your hole, shaped as you’d wish. Pack the soil with tamping post or heavy roller, then apply a Lining or Coating. With hard clay a DIY polyurea penetrates only at 4-12% of its thickness. Using 8% average, at 100 mils (under 1/8 inch) gets 8 mils penetration or adhesion. 8 mils or 8/1000 of an inch is like a thin coat of paint, ergo your retaining wall is a thin, semi-flexible shell. Remaining 92 mils remains more flexible. For small ponds under 1600 gallons or low walls under 12 inches that will suffice. More water, bigger, deeper ponds require thicker lining. This creates a thicker shell, necessary to remain without shifting over time. Heavier items like boulders or statues will, “settle into” polyurea verses resting, “on top” of this lining. Since it’s polyurea is semi elastic, slight elongation occurs with more weight (PSI). Our group has 23 members now. 15 of us did this, most needed help of others but a few of us like my wife & kid (19) and I bugged nobody. Our main one done this way is 6300 gallons average 1 to 3 feet depth.
Is Geotextile necessary? For low clay %, sandy soils or very wet, rainy climates, woven or EPDM geotextile may be included with packages. Excess coating thickness (we all use Seal Tite), while more rigid allows more soil shifting but woven geotextile costs less. Geotextile’s elasticity and elongation is much lower than polyurea. Therefore harder shell is with woven geotextile, more flexible shell is with pure polyurea. If geotextile is EPDM, this is more rigid than polyurea alone but is more flexible than woven.
WOVEN GEOTEXTILE vs EPDM AS GEOTEXTILE is a choice.
Woven thickness is approximately 10 to 20 mils. It’s a hard plastic-like poly with very minimal elasticity. Geotextile costs more and adds complexity to the job but it adds strength to the structure. EPDM is 30 to 50 mils. Vendors we used are below. All those had at least one person who knew what we needed.
* While this advice presumes plumbing, filtration, drainage details are known or to be decided, it’s also assumed that use of simplified, top entries serve best as lowest cost startup systems.
How to apply: Depends what brand but Rhino Linings sells a spray-on cartridge system, I doubt it can be rolled on. They have applicators but you need one that doesn't do just truck beds, like a body shop. You want an actual coatings applicator (
jobs@rhinolinings.com). Spray-Lining & Coatings' Seal Tite is advised to be sprayed, with loaned or included spray-rigs; bigger area requires larger guns or pumped spray systems. Rolling is possible with heavy-made, aluminum, yoke/bracket framed, and low profile bearing rollers. Mixing and details are simplified in directions (
Service@Spray-Lining.com). Specialty Products, Inc has big spray rigs for bigger jobs with professional applicators (
info@specialty-products.com). Arma Coatings was used and came out nice on a smaller 600 gallon pond (
info@armacoatings.com)... out of the 15 of us, 8 used Seal Tite DIY deals & 1 used an SLC dealer. Pros are about $14 to $20/ sq ft and DIY ran (me) about $3/ sq ft.
Job time after pond shape was created and compacted: Mixing, general preparation, Spraying (rolling) requires approximately 20 minutes per 120 square feet. Geotextile laying range is similar, if used. Cure time range is 8 hours to 96 hours. Depends on temperature, humidity, thickness and whether or not geotextile is included.
In photos you'll see the my diagram of how (my) polyurea works with ground shifting.
UUUUUGGGHH This was work to do, I hope a few of you may use our success!!!
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took photo of mine today- done with that polyurea. It wouldn't save- I'll try later on, maybe.
