Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Liners

So I was reading the Perfect Pond last night and I read something interesting and want to get everyones thoughts.

It said "the only 100% guarenteed way to get a leak free pond is by using a liner".

Now I understand not wanting to line a 20 acre pond but the example they used in the book was a 1 acre pond and the liner was $12,500.

It seems like we spend thousands of dollars testing soils, thousands of dollars moving and mixing clay from God knows where, stressing about leaks and a lot of money spent filling ponds when all those problems can be solved with a liner.

Why dont more people use them? It seems like a no brainer, what am I missing other than the cost? I mean with a liner you would have to save some on the construction of the pond because it doesnt have to be built to the same tolerences.

What am I missing?

I've never spent any money having soils tested for plasticity(50 cent word). I generally just roll it into a ball and throw it at something like the side of a pickup. If it busts apart instead of sticking I know it isn't what I want and I move to another place and retest.

Having built a small pond with a liner, there are drawbacks:
1. Puncturing the liner. Drop a rock, step in a bad spot with something sharp on your shoe, drag a boat, get your hook stuck... there are numerous ways to get a leak. Will any one of these be enough to drain a large pond? Probably not, but get enough of them and perhaps...
2. In cold climates critters that need to hibernate in the mud will find none on the sides unless the liner is buried under more soil.
3. Very tough to install all of that heavy material in one contiguous non-leaking piece. You really need someone who knows what they are doing to get it right. Probably very region dependent to find that expertise.
4. Planting is impossible unless you set up ledges to hold pots of plants. In a 1 acre pond this is probably impractical. With a natural bottom, plants can naturally spread. But on a rubber bottom, nothing. Again the liner would need to be buried.
5. The natural look is compromised and will take some work to hide the liner edge.
6. Slippery as all heck. Plan on doing a lot of swimming while you are working on it.

However they are perfect if you have no other means for holding water. Example: My garden pond required one or it would have run dry in hours. It looked good (until I tore out stuff last summer), but took a lot of work. Perhaps will get it up to 20x30 this summer from 8x10, but low priority now with the much larger pond to deal with. Sort of an eyesore right now.