Below are some results from a quick search in your area.

If you have fish in the pond, I'd look for a someone familiar with keeping fish.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ponds

have you thought about doing it yourself? I used to build swimming pools and it really isn't very complicated. The important part is to find a fish safe sealer. A place like Burkie (sp) in woodinville probably would have it.

Something to think about.

jb

Do you know about Angie's List? They have quite a few listings for the Seattle area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Angie's List

Eric,

I'm not sure what you have in mind but my pond is sprayed in place polyurea that is fabulous. I replaced leaking preforms and epdm streams last year with the polyurea. The company that sprayed mine is locally based....Applied Resin Technologies. If you've ever read much on the koi sites, people talk about this guy with much respect. Anyway, I can get you his number if it's of interest. He's been a customer of mine for about 10 years and I'm a very happy customer of his now too :-)

boxofrox;

yes, please get me the number.

Juniorballon:

Also, please let me know the how to. I tried to get someone to do it but gunnite companies are too busy now.

I'll e-mail you directly with questions.

As it stands, I plan to drain the pond this weekend and put the fish in a barrel or two. I should be able to find the big leak and patch it temporarily until I can find the time or person to re-do it.

Thanks
ERIC

Personally, I would not cement a pond. They tend to crack. Most people I know with cement ponds end up using rubber liners over them.

Often leaks are really fine tuning problems with waterfalls or fountains.

rubber liners are relatively easy to patch though.

I would welcome you to this pond forum, it is new but the group has been around for many years at other forums:

Here is a link that might be useful: American Ponders

A cement pond shouldn't crack if you've used the proper reinforcement and made it thick enough. 4 inches thick with steel reinforcement mesh on 4 or 5 inch centers. You can use fence material. What is important is to get the mesh in the middle of the wall thickness.

I would also look into the spray on urethane. I remember someone saying it's about $1.70 a square foot. I think it's the same stuff they spray into truck beds.

For the cement work it's all in prepping the work area. Clean it out, lay the mesh, secure it in place so that it isn't flopping around and moving on you and pour the cement and trowel it into place. You'll want to let it cure for about 28 days before you seal it. At least that's what was done with the pools.

If you add a lot of plubming it gets a bit more complicated. Bottom drain, skimmers and such. But that true of any method.

A cost comparison between cement and the urethane would be a worthwhile excercise.

If you go with cement I'd be happy to come over and lend a hand, though I can't do much heavy physical labor.

jb

Thanks to all who gave their great advice. I called a few cement companies including one that builds skateboard parks. They got back to me today, 2 weeks after I contacted them.

I contacted 2 gunnite companies and several cement general contractors. None replied to my messages. I'm certain if I hired an immigrant to do the job they'd be complaining about how it was taking jobs away from Americans.

The most interesting info is about spray-on polyurea coating that is applied by Tim Zuber of Applied Resin Technology of Woodinville. I've linked an article about it here.

boxofrox's pond is coated in this amazing stuff. The cost of applying it is about $10 per square foot.

I realized that nothing was going to happen quickly, as far as hiring someone to re-do the pond. I decided to drain the pond and see if I could patch the hole, even temporarily. I spent Saturday with one of my kids, draining the pond, transferring about 30 fish to a holding tank, and mucking out the pond. I thoroughly inspected every square inch of the liner, looking for a large tear.

NOTHING! No hole, no tear.

It now appears that the leak is in the stream, which has settled. The drainage around the stream is excellent, so I never saw signs of a large leak.

I have shut the stream down and bypassed it with ABS pipe between the filter and stream. The water level in the pond is now stable and higher than its been in years.

On the negative side, the heron that frequents the pond, seems to have gotten my 12" koi while the water level was low, because it was nowhere to be found.

I am content with the rubber liner for now, which has actually held up well over its eight years of use. I will either re-do the stream with higher sides and a new liner or take it out altogether.

Thanks all!

Here is a link that might be useful: Zuber's amazing polurea resin pond coating

Eric,

So sorry for your loss :-( We have six koi and three shabukes that we bought as babies so they could grow up with the pond and we have grown quite attached, so I feel for you. Life is hectic at times but my wife and I really enjoy sitting down together to feed the lil fellers. I know the wive's tale says that if you name your fish they will die but we have names for them all and we cheer for them in their mad dash for the chow, especially the smaller shabukes.

The polyurea is everything the article says. My waterfalls and streams are built into a fairly steep hill and it would have been a nightmare to try and contain it with epdm especially on the uphill sides. After I did it last year, it took a while for everything to season and for all my re-plantings to mature but this year it's all coming together.

Sorry the heron got your fishie. Been there, done that though with Kingfishers and Raccoons. I didn't think Kingfishers were big enough to carry off large goldfish but I saw him get an 8" Shubunkin with my own eyes. :( Since we now have an electric fence and a large floating island planter for the fishies to hide under, no more losses due to predation.

DH electrified copper pipe using the transformer for a Fishock fence and used bamboo for the posts. Looks much nicer than the Fishock out of the box.

If the bird persists, my friend John has a DIY scarecrow on his site that he calls the Heronizer that is much less expensive to build than a Scarecrow is to buy. click on Predators.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Endeavors

hi:

When full the pond is 3 ft. deep and the fish can go deep and hide. When leaky (which is now fixed) it was as shallow as 1.5 ft.

Straight sides make in unfriendly to raccoons. Bamboo stakes set in pots in pond and at an angle around pond can keep out herons.

eric