Geomembrane installation in the West Midlands

What we line with geomembrane

A geomembrane is a low-permeability polymer sheet that keeps liquid in, or out of, whatever it lines. Across the region our own crew installs it on:

• Attenuation and balancing basins on housing and commercial developments.
• Slurry and digestate lagoons on farms and anaerobic digestion sites in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Herefordshire.
• Permeable car park sub-bases, lined so the stored water stays out of the ground.
• The impermeable wrap around geocellular attenuation tanks.
• Internal liners for modular galvanised steel tanks.

Matching the membrane to what it holds

HDPE suits large, exposed areas and aggressive contents such as slurry. LLDPE conforms better to the formation and is our usual tank wrap at around 0.75mm. PP and EPDM come in where flexibility and detailing matter, and a GCL can replace a membrane on a confined basin. Thicknesses run from about 0.6mm on a tank wrap to 2mm on a primary lagoon liner.

Where a lagoon's permit asks for more, we build a double-lined system: a secondary liner, a drainage layer to carry any seepage to a leak-detection point, and a welded primary liner over the top, with a floating cover if specified. If your design names the material, we install it; if not, we recommend one for the contents and the site.

Seams are where linings fail

The sheet itself rarely leaks; the joints do. We wedge-weld the long panel seams and extrusion-weld the patches, corners, pipe boots and penetrations, all with calibrated equipment. Nothing is taped or solvent-bonded.

Weather matters too. Wind lifts loose panels and damp or dirty sheet won't take a good weld, so we ballast panels as they go down and only weld clean, dry membrane. If conditions on the day won't give a sound seam, we stop and say so.

Every job gets a logged test weld and an inspection of all seams and details, and you receive the weld records, as-built details and a QA pack. That is what an inspector, an insurer or a warranty provider will ask for.

Working at scale: the Worcester basin

The Worcester attenuation basin, 3,500m² in 1mm HDPE, had 300g/m² protective fleece below and above. At that size the job is planned before it starts: the order the panels go down, where each seam falls, and the specialist lifting needed for heavy HDPE rolls. The membrane was welded panel to panel and quality-checked across the whole basin.

Smaller jobs get the same discipline. A tank wrap on a tight urban plot in Wolverhampton or a lagoon reline on a Shropshire dairy farm still starts with a formation check, still has a protective fleece under the membrane, and still leaves site with a recorded test weld.