Pond lining in Manchester

Mill lodges, estate ponds and farm reservoirs

The textile towns around the city were built beside water. Bolton, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham still have mill lodges, the reservoirs that fed the boilers, and many now serve as amenity or wildlife water. Their clay or masonry linings were never built to last two centuries, and a leaking lodge is a common reason to call us.

Newer work comes from development and land use: wet ponds on the outer estates of Wigan and Rochdale, water features in business parks, golf course ponds, and irrigation reservoirs for nurseries and sports grounds. Each has a different job, and the job settles the liner.

Choosing the membrane

We look at the size, the shape, the ground and what the water is for before recommending anything. A lodge with stone walls on two sides needs a different answer from a wildlife scrape on a country park.

• EPDM: small, curvy wildlife ponds
• LLDPE: welded panels on uneven beds
• PP: fiddly details round structures
• HDPE: big reservoirs, sunlit banks
• GCL: a natural clay bed, if water suits

Welding in a wet climate

Manchester's reputation for rain is earned, and it matters on a lining job. A weld made on a damp or dirty sheet is a weak weld. We plan panel layouts so seams can be made in the dry spells, keep the edges clean, and stop rather than push on when the sheet is wet. Every job gets its own test weld, logged on the day, so the records show the welder was set correctly for the conditions.

Underneath, a geotextile underlay protects the membrane from the stones that glacial clay tends to carry. At the crest, the sheet runs into a trench round the whole pond and is buried there, and every outlet and pipe is formed and sealed as its own detail.

Relining an old pond

On an existing pond we inspect what is there and look for the cause of the leak before quoting. The old bed is cleared and trimmed by your contractor, fresh underlay goes down, and the new liner is welded over it. Silt and roots are the usual culprits, and a new protection layer deals with both.

Mill lodges bring their own details: stone retaining walls, old sluices and culverts, and inlets from streams off the moors. The liner has to be fixed and sealed against each of them, and that work takes longer than the open bed. We price it honestly once we have seen it.