(I hope you guys aren't getting tired of me yet!) I think that I found the source of my disappearing pond water. I've let the level drop as far as it would, and it has stopped falling on at least one side-- the upper pool. I am not sure if the lower pool is still falling yet. And I have come to see something I previously didn't know about the pond- it's actually comprised of three different pieces of liner. It looks like there is at least one place water is leaking out, at the point between the liners for the upper pool and the "stream" connecting the two. I lifted the pieces apart a bit, and it does seem like the adhesive could use a little help. I am waiting to see what happens next. The water level seems to have stabilized, but it's still above the point where the "stream" liner connects to the liner at the lower pond, so I think that little "merger" is still holding up. Now, what in the heck do I do? I have read tons of stuff about fixing leaks caused by holes in the rubber liners using the patches and such, but what do you do in my situation? Do you think I need to simply (clean and) apply more adhesive to the area, or will my efforts need to be more exhaustive? Or, can anyone direct me to a link that gives me more specific directions? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I hope I can continue to convince my husband that this isn't a lot of work. I'm wondering if the previous owner didn't cover up the issue of disappearing water by constantly adding more-- I found some tubing connecting to the waterfall that was attached to the automatic sprinkler system I disassembled last weekend. As always, thanks everyone for your encouragement and support. :-D I hope I can resurrect this hurting pond to a point of beauty! -emily
So glad you seem to have discovered where the leak is Emily. :-D As long as the two sides to be joined are dry and clean then it's really simple to apply the tape and seal them together. Maybe there's a supplier of this type of tape in your area or maybe geo-synthetics would deliver to you?
I sell the tape, but I really don't recommend trying to seam it in the field. Seaming can be done at the factory, but it's hard otherwise. One time I seamed liner: We were in a huge warehouse, stocking feet. Everything was clean and dry. We used the seam sealer and walked on it. Then we used a hair dryer to heat up the seam. Last I heard it did work for a short while, but not for long. It might be cheaper and easier to just replace the liner.
