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Jun 7th, 2026
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| by LukeRohr456 |
| LukeRohr456 |
Hello All,
Looking for some advice as my pond dig is currently undergo. I am having a 1 acre pond dug out below my house, 15 foot deep in the middle. I am running into ground water at about 4-5 foot under ground. This is not a surprise as there is a small (4 foot) wide stream that is 30 yards away that trickles water through the year. I am trying to contemplate my lining / sealing options for maintaining a 10 foot plus pond depth. I am most likely going to put in a well, I have an old barn that I would like to have water to so its a win/win to install one with the pond.
Does anyone have experience with putting a pond in with loom soil and the above conditions? Appreciate any feedback/help I get. I have a clay contact that lives close and will allow me to use all I want. Only concern is with the high water table is that it will wash it away / make it not work. Also with a liner, I have read about all the troubles with them "Ballooning" in high water tables.
Thanks,
Luke
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| by willyfield20 |
| willyfield20 |
Yes, we did, but it was coming in faster than the pump could keep up. We had hit 8' deep at the point, and it was very sloppy. We figured that 8' is deep enough. We have dug three ponds on my property and have yet to hit 10' due to water flooding in. The good part is that my ponds never drop more than a foot no matter how dry it is. We are in the snow/rain/sleet/gropple belt of NE OH, so there is very little sun, (like 60 days of it a year) and lots of precipitation thanks to Lake Erie, so evaporation is not much of an issue here.
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| 2 members like this |
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| by esshup |
| esshup |
Thanks for the info:
With your ground water pond dropping as much as 9 feet, do you have fish you are able to keep alive ?
Yea, I'm just trying to figure out which pond sealing method to go with. Both seem to have their draw backs in my situation. Oh yes. When I renovated the pond, I knew that the water level would fluctuate, so I dug it 21' deep. Not a week after the equipment moved off the property, Hurricane Ike rolled through and dumped 12" rain in < 24 hours washing almost 3' of sand back into the pond. When the pond was 9' low, I removed close to 100 pounds of fish to lower the biochemical demand on the pond for the winter, and made sure that the aeration system was running at all times.
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| 1 member likes this |
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| by esshup |
| esshup |
Yea,
My contractor knows ... its been a pain and will continue until completion with how wet it is. He has a 12-14 foot spot dug out that he has been pumping out water while he has been taking away soil from the other area of the pond. I suppose at this point I will just have to wait until the entire pond is dug out and we can take a look at where any potential water is coming in before deciding which options might be best.
I have my contractor working on a quote now to haul in / put the clay down. I also received a few liner quotes back from various companies and it seems like a liner would be the cheaper option at this point. My biggest fear is the bubbling effect it can have. The companies I have received quotes from haven't been to helpful on advice with the situation... they just sell the plastic I'm told haha. FYI, a pond construction project that I consulted on had a really, really GOOD dirt mover. His fix to digging a pond with ground water? He would put a french drain all around the perimeter of the pond construction area about 25 feet away from the perimeter of the pond, 5' deeper than the max depth of the pond. Then he'd attach risers to the french drain and hook up pumps to pump the water out. Pricey, but it worked and they didn't have to touch a thing once all the pumps were installed other than to fill them with diesel fuel and prime them if they lost prime. When the project was completed, he'd dig 5'-10' down at each riser, cut the risers off and backfill, leaving the blocked off french drain in the ground.
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| 1 member likes this |
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