Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Lake Construction - Bottom structure?

I have spent a lot of time on these developed communities with their own lakes. Many times they are less than five acres, but they appear to have a concrete type bottom that goes out to the sides as well. Does anyone know what kind of material this is? Can it be used in something that is going to be 20 acres and around 30feet deep? It seems to be a great solution to losing water to permeation, setting up structure would be easy and aeration would be easier as well.

Any thoughts on this or what this material is called?

Thanks

James

King-Fish,

Under the heading "AQUATIC VEGETATION - Identifying Plants" look for the topic 'Bill Cody - need Algae ID' by Kelly Duffie 8-14-04. Part way through this thread, Kelly talks about a concrete type material called "Gunnite". Perhaps this is what you are looking for.

Russ

Good question when you get an answer to the type of material let me know it would take the guess work out of getting a lake to hold water. Price is always a consideration, but a leaky lake is lousy.

Otto

King-Fish, My son in law builds swimming pools and Gunnite is what is sprayed and sculptured on the bottom and sides of the pools, this has to be what your talking about.

Good call Russ! I remembered that thread but couldn't remember where it was!

Gunite is simply the result of a specific way of inline mixing concrete. It is a trade name for "dry gunned" concrete.

"Dry gun" means the cement and sand are injected into an air stream that is then conveyed to a nozzle. The nozzle operator then adds the water at the nozzle and has total control of the water-cement ratio. The delivery hose of the mix is generally quite light, as the hose is mostly filled with air containing the mix of cement and sand.

For a pool, you further plaster coat the "gunite". About 7 continuous days of brushing the plaster after the pool is filled with water will create a very smooth surface.

You would need to hold the "gunite" together with rebar to avoid cracks and leakage. A "gunite" lake will be very expensive to build... I'm not sure that it would even be possible to build a 20 acre concrete bottom lake that wouldn't eventually crack and hence leak...