Fibreglass - Day 1

Possibly one of, if not THE most anticipated tasks of a new pond build .... the day the pond gets fibreglassed. Although a lot of time, effort and money has been put into the project so far in making the new structure look like a pond, it's not until the fibreglassing has been completed that you actually sit back and think "there's my new pond". And that's before putting the water in!

Tuesday 19th July was the scheduled start date of our fibreglassing experience which as previously mentioned, was being lovingly applied by GRP Lining Services. After a quick safety brief from Matt (over a cuppa of course), he was soon at work and cracking on with the task at hand. After a thorough look around the main pond, the header pond and Keiran's pond for anything untoward, Matt was soon applying the first of many sheets of PU foam lining. The PU foam is cemented direct to the blockwork so there's no need to render. It presents a great surface with which to apply the GRP (glass reinforced plastic) but also offers thermal properties too - so it's a win win situation, especially if you're going to be heating your pond.

Straight after completing the main pond it was on to the header pond for the PU foam lining treatment, quickly followed by Keiran's pond. It was about the time of lining the header pond that the heavens decided to drop it's full content of water onto Market Weighton. It absolutely chucked it down! It's no wonder that Matt insists that ponds are fully covered with ample over hang. There's no way work could have continued without the cover, in fact what had already been completed would have simply been ruined without it.

Time was just about on our side and so Matt decided to glass the header pond also. He'd pre-cut the sheets of glass to length and so after a quick mix of resin, he was soon rollering and applying the sheets to form the fibreglass finish.

After enduring an absolute torrential downpour for the majority of the afternoon, we'd managed to keep the area clear of water contamination apart from one small white splash mark (caused when water interferes with the curing process and discolours the fibreglass) in the header pond caused by a solitary drip from the cover. Things could easily have been a lot worse.