Bad Pond Installation, everyone's a pond installer!

Read Robyn's big pond problems. Here are some of my own:

1. My pond was built on a slope and when I asked the installer how he planned to keep run-off from entering the pond, he replied that he would build up 4 inches of liner under a dirt berm to route run-off around the pond. Great idea if he would have remembered! After putting the liner in and putting rocks on the edge of the liner, he promplty began cutting the liner (very close) right up against the rocks. Two problems here: 1. he forgot about the dirt berm and 2. he left nothing to work with, ie.: there was no reason to cut off all that excess liner before filling the pond with water. When I asked what happend to the dirt berm, he said he forgot.

2. They left without filling the pond with water because that was up to me and when I had it filled, the water was 11" deep on the far side and 4" deep on the near side where there was about a foot of side sticking out of the water. Called and asked if they leveled the pond and they said yes, they leveled it length-wise but not width-wise.

NOTE: my husband made them come back and fix both the berm and the level which took them a lot of work and aggravation since they had trimmed the liner so close.

3. I had requested 3' to 4' deep in the center but they insisted 2' was plenty deep and it is 22" at best when completely filled to the brim. Amazingly, only lost two fantails the first winter. Have plans on how to remedy this and will do so in the spring.

4. The pea gravel was sharp by my standards so took it out and replaced it with smoother pea gravel.

5. Started losing water in the spring (don't know why I hadn't realized it earlier--just thought it was wind and evaporation) and began digging up the water line going from the skimmer to the biofalls tub. Wish I had started at the tub! After digging over 20' of waterline up, finally started digging into the 'volcano' where the biofalls tub is, pulling out plants as it got wetter and wetter, I knew that's where the problem was. They had never tightened the bulk head going into the biofalls tub which my husband promptly did with a giant wrench. He said they probably just hand tightened it and it got worse and worse with the freeze and thaw.

6. They installed the skimmer so low that a good 6" of sidewall was above water. This had the effect of making the pond always look low on water. I dug up the skimmer and raised it this spring giving me another 500 gallons.

Interesting side note: the pond ended up being 2000 gallons (before raising the skimmer) and the installer told me I could put thousands of fish in it. Could you imagine that?

Like Robyn, I hope someone else can benefit from my story by being aware of what installers can do wrong and planning and watching carefully what they're doing.

My best advice is to stay there every minute to watch what they're doing and how they're doing it.

Thanks for sharing your problems. I hope they help others! It's amazing that the people who put in my pond and your pond get paid to do such poor work! My 3 foot deep pond ended up 26" max. Pond builders should be required to know basic math and science!