Choosing the Right Garden Pond Liners

Whether you're building a large commercial pond or a small water garden, pond liners are essential to making your pond watertight. Without a good pond or water garden liner, the pond will slowly (or quickly) lose water into the ground below.

Liners are manufactured and assembled in North America

Custom Drop-In Liners

Custom sized drop-in liners for instant water containment.

Simple. Easy. Custom Liners 

Quickly Line Cylindrical Tanks

Preformed-pond-liner-insert-custom

Drop-In Liner Features

Heavy Duty Material
Quick installation - no folding or pleating
Custom sizes to get exactly what you need
Stronger than regular pond liners
NSF-61 certified for organic farming & drinking water applications!
Lighter and Stronger than EPDM Rubber

Our Most Popular Pond Liner!

Experience the pinnacle of pond liner quality and dependability with Premium Pond Liner from Everything Ponds. Boasting impressive strength and UV resistance, these liners are guaranteed not to leach any chemicals into the water, making them even safe for holding drinking water, as well as being fish, plant, and hydroponics-friendly.

Strong & Reliable

FREE Shipping

over $99 to the lower 48

North American Made

Won't Leach Chemicals

Other Pond Liners

For most pond or water containment applications, we recommend the Premium Liner or Premium PLUS liner linked above. However, we also occasionally suggest our Classic RPE liner, as well as traditional EPDM rubber for specific applications.

North American Made RPE Available in 3 Thicknesses to Suit your Project

Reliable Water Containment at an Affordable Price

Tried and True Classic Pond Liner

Very Bendable (at the expense of being less puncture resistant)

Have liner questions? Visit our FAQ page

Compare Everything Ponds Custom Liners!

Why Premium Liners?

Everything Ponds Premium Liners are strong, lightweight and reliable, meaning you can sleep easier at night knowing you've installed the best. 

Reliable - Strong - Light Weight

Pond_Water_Pump

RPE Benefits

3 - 5 times stronger than EPDM rubber liners
Custom sized liners up to 60,000sqft
NSF-61 certified for organic farming & drinking water
North American made resulting in higher quality control standards than budget RPE liners commonly made in China.
Reinforced for extra strength
1/3 the weight of EPDM
Pond_Underlayment_Geotextile

Acts as a protective layer above or below a garden pond liner

Compare EPDM to RPE Liners

Reinforced Polyethylene (RPE) Pond liners are the superior choice in most water containment projects.

Everything Ponds Premium Liner

3x stronger than EPDM
1/3 the weight of EPDM
Custom sizing
A single-piece up to 60,000 sf
No onsite seaming needed
20-year warranty in direct sun
Often no underlayment needed
Drinking water safe NSF-61
Stiffer than EPDM
Heat gun required for custom details

EPDM Rubber
Pond Liner

Softer material is easier to puncture
Heavy material
Sizing in 5' increments
>5,000 sf requires onsite seaming
onsite seaming needed above 5,000sf
Covered for best UV protection
Underlayment required
Fish safe, not drinking water safe
Very bendable & flexible
DIY seaming with primer & tape

Tried and true classic pond liner

Very bendable (at the expense of being less puncture-resistant)

Carlisle AquaTough is fish and plant safe

Must be used in conjunction with underlayment due to reduced puncture resistance

Have liner questions? Visit our FAQ page

Flat Liners vs. Preformed Liners

There are two main categories of pond and water garden liners. First, there are flat, flexible liners, that are able to bend and conform to any custom shape you can build. The second type are preformed pond liners, which are manufactured into a pre-determined shape out of some kind of flexible liner, hardened plastic or fiberglass.

Flexible Pond Liners

The first and more popular option when it comes to pond and water garden liners are flexible liners made out of materials like Reinforced Polyethylene, Polypropylene or EPDM Rubber. There are other cheaper materials available, however, for the purpose of building a lasting pond, it's best to stick with one of the above-mentioned pond liner materials. Each liner has it's own strengths and weaknesses, read on to learn more about each.

RPE- Reinforced Polyethylene Pond Liners

RPE - Reinforced Polyethylene liners are considered one of the most durable pond liners available, lasting up to 40 years with excellent puncture resistance. In many cases, RPE liners don't even need a protective underlayment because of their higher strength. Another advantage of RPE is they can be produced in very large sizes because of their lightweight, up to 60,000 sq ft in a single panel in the case of our Premium Grade RPE Pond Liner. They are also certified potable (human drinking) water safe - NSF-61 certified. However, a possible disadvantage to RPE liners is that they are slightly less bendable to work with compared with some other flexible liners like EPDM rubber. This is only a slight disadvantage if a pond has a lot of sharp bends and corners that require a ton of folding and pleating. Even then, it's usually not that big of a deal, and we still opt for RPE because of it's higher strength and durability. One thing to remember when buying any liner, is that you have to be careful about who you buy the liner from. Not all liners are created equal. Our Premium Grade RPE liners are guaranteed to be fish and plant safe, and come with a 25-year warranty. In addition to ponds and lakes, RPE is commonly used as an industrial liner.


Box Welded Polypropylene Liners

When considering options for rectangular or circular shaped garden pond liners, holding tanks, vegetable filters or other applications, our box-welded polypropylene is an excellent product to consider. Not only is it light and strong, but it is highly UV resistant and safe for fish, plants and humans. In fact, our polypropylene liners are so safe, they are even rated for human drinking water applications. However, the main reason we like Polypropylene is that it can be easily box-welded into 3D shapes at our facility. Box-welding is the process of taking a flat liner and creating a 3D shaped box or cylinder through the process of heat welding the seams (see the picture on the right). The main advantage of box-welding is that all the corners are nice and clean with no folds or wrinkles. If you've ever worked with a flat liner like EPDM rubber and tried to bend it around corners and ledges, you'll know that you will never get it completely flat as numerous folds and liner bunches will be necessary to conform it to the pond substrate. To learn more about custom drop-in pond and tank liners, please see the box-welded polypropylene liners in our store.

Shelves for Box Liners

Looking for an easy way to add shelves to one of our rectangular box-welded liners? Try the Aquascape AquaBlox. These can be used to elevate plants, rocks or other objects off the bottom of the pond. They can also be used as a pump valut, which allows you to hide a pump inside the unit as well as strain out large objects from entering the pump.

Rubber Liners

In the past, before RPE liners were fully developed, most ponds were built using 45 mil EPDM rubber garden pond liners. Although rubber liners are quite heavy and much less puncture resistant than our premium RPE liners, they are very flexible which is nice for ponds that have lots of bends, shelves and other features. However, unlike RPE, multiple panels can't be heat welded together. Heat welding is by far the most reliable way to seam a liner - it's possible with RPE, but not EPDM. However, it is possible to join two or more EPDM sheets together with liner tape. Because rubber is so much heavier than RPE, one of the disadvantages of rubber is that it's often more difficult to find and ship large pieces of EPDM due to weight concerns. If you need a large piece, it is usually better to go with a premium grade RPE liner since it's stronger, lighter and more cost-effective. To learn more about large liners, please see our page on large pond liners.


BUTYL rubber is another type of rubber liner that isn't used as frequently as EPDM. To learn more about the differences between EPDM and BUTYL rubber liners, please see our page dedicated to Rubber Pond Liners. To learn more about one popular EPDM liner option, please see our page on Firestone pond liners, or buy Firestone PondGuard in our store here.

PVC Liners

pvc pond liner
A Flexible PVC Pond Liner

PVC liners are usually the least expensive option compared to other flexible liner materials, but their biggest downside is their lack of UV stability. What that means is that the water garden liner has to be completely buried with no direct sunlight contact, otherwise the liner will begin to break down, shortening the life span. If you do decide to go with a PVC liner, be sure to go with a good quality name. Some of the cheaper PVC garden pond liners may not be safe for fish due to the type of plasticizers used.


Preformed Garden Pond Liners

preformed pond liner
A Typical Preformed Pond Liner

While preformed pond liners are quite easy to install, they are somewhat less flexible with respect to size, shape and artistic freedom since they are purchased in a predetermined shape. While it is possible to find a preformed liner in an appropriate size for a large scale water garden or koi pond, oftentimes they are used more as small garden pond liners. Typically preformed liners are made out of either plastic or fiberglass, which also makes it very difficult to install a pond skimmer. Installing a pond skimmer usually involves cutting a hole in the side of the liner, which usually isn't possible or is much more difficult with a hardshell liner. For more information please see our pages on fiberglass pond liners and plastic liners, pond liners for sale.

For more pond liner information, please click on one of the above links, or read our step by step guild entitled 'How to Build a Pond'.

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Everything-Ponds.com is your complete source for quality pond liner information. Have a question about any of the garden pond liners mentioned above? Please send us an  email!