Polyurea is a spray-applied plastic coating that is applied with unique devices and training. However, this article is entitled “Preparing for Polyurea” because, as a pond home builder, you more than likely won’t be using it yourself. The devices and training required normally run in between $100,000 to $150,000 and sometimes more. With that type of investment and training, you will need to be a polyurea spray professional, keeping the devices operating as typically as possible, to get a return on your financial investment. Paired to that is the upkeep and maintenance. Letting the equipment set for long periods of time between tasks is costly.

Tech Specs

Polyurea is a two-part system provided to the surface to be coated at approximately 200 degrees Fahrenheit and 2,000 psi by a specialized set of pumping equipment, heated hoses and a spray gun. The two parts (polyurea solids and isocyanate) are heated and metered together by the pumping system, reaching the spray gun through heated hose pipes that can be a number of hundred feet in length.

Polyurea waterproofing

Polyurea enables waterproofing of shapes like islands and actions (middle and right) that can not be achieved with liner.
There are many polyurea formulas on the market for use in various circumstances and applications such as truck bed liners, roof, decking, blast defense and armor plating, waterproofing, water containment, structural security and more. A lot of these solutions have plasticizers that offer specific chemistry for a specific application. The formulas utilized for water containment are typically pure polyurea solutions without any plasticizers.


The beauty of using polyurea in pond building and construction is that it can be applied over practically any shape or structure within reason, without any wrinkles or folds, and has an elasticity of roughly 400 percent. It can support lots of boulders without leak and roots can’t grow through it.

When used over bare dirt, an underlayment is put down initially with the polyurea applied over it. Polyurea is likewise an ideal surface area coating when cold joints in between various sections of concrete come together or when other structural products such as piers or islands are in play. Indoor water features along with features that come close to or incorporate the structure of a structure are prime uses.
Polyurea is not glued! It has a “Band-Aid stick” to a lot of surface areas and needs to be mechanically secured to all penetrations, just as you would when utilizing an EPDM liner. Pond-type skimmers, bottom drains pipes, mid-water drains pipes and returns are all produced with clamping flange faces for liner. These are ideal for polyurea. Leading edges can overlap and be caught by the top cap or stone, just as you would with liner. Edge treatments can be achieved with a ledge around the top, just as you would a plant ledge with stacked rocks and stones hiding and securing the edge.

Nearly nothing sticks to polyurea. In setups where tile or vertical stone requires to be applied up the face of a surface or wall, a stainless-steel lath is merged onto the face to create a grid surface for the mortar to bond to.


When considering polyurea, believe and develop around what the specialist needs to accomplish your goal. Build in a “polyurea-friendly” manner. Corners ought to be radiused and not left as a sharp, 90-degree shape. It can be challenging to shoot into sharp corners, so even a slight radius of a half-inch is an improvement. Penetrations must be 10 to 12 inches far from corners, floorings or other structures to allow room for the spray gun assembly to be navigated. Columns and structures should be at least 18 inches apart and shallow troughs need to be at least 18 inches broad for clearance. If a deep trough is developed it needs to be even wider so the specialist can control the devices properly.

Polyurea is usually applied in a number of passes to accomplish a density of around 80 mils. The spray gun requires to contend 90 degrees to the surface, spraying “head-on” and not at an angle, to get an even coat. Spraying at an angle can trigger runs, leaks and an unequal coating.

Concrete Prep.
When using polyurea over concrete, the surface ought to have a “pathway” surface. Trowel the concrete surface as smooth as possible or parge the surface later to fill all the holes, spaces and imperfections. Polyurea will appear like the surface area it is applied to, so make it look great, just as you would “Bondo” the body work on a car before painting. Utilize a product that will become extremely difficult and not grainy or weak when applied thin. Some parge coatings can have a chain reaction with polyurea and pinhole terribly, causing a huge amount of extra time to handle. My personal favorite is Gray Bond-Kote by Super-Krete products. Constantly check with your polyurea applicator of option before you use any parge coating system.



The flanged surfaces of your penetrations of choice will have a variety of screw holes that you will need to find later to connect the clamp ring. Place a surface nail in a couple of holes, leaving the others open. Filling all the holes with nails makes removal and preparation for the ring hard because polyurea is strong and tough to cut. Cutting just a couple of nails out with a razor knife is much easier, and when the very first number of screws are in location the other holes are indexed through the holes in the clamp ring. The screws will go right through the poly and into the holes in the flange quickly. If the skimmer face is supplied with nuts and bolts or machine screws put a number of screws in for indexing and cover the other holes with tape or paper dots. To set up the faceplate, set up the very first two and mark the other holes to be cut out afterward.

Communicate for Best Results.
Always be in contact with your polyurea specialist before the job begins. Getting ready for polyurea implies developing a job that the applicator can coat without a lot of difficulty. You are less most likely to be charged for additional prep time by the polyurea specialist if you do your job correctly. Ensure you enable the prep time in your quote. On gunnite or shot-crete ponds, let the crew know ahead of time what you anticipate from them. They are used to shooting around protruding piping that gets cut off later by the pool plaster crew. They will presume you desire a rough surface area for a plaster coat unless you define otherwise. Ask if they can have a couple cement finishers on hand to trowel the surface area as smooth as they can and be prepared to pay for that. Otherwise you will be parging the whole surface area yourself after they leave to get the finish surface area smooth enough for polyurea. This will be pricey and lengthy. No matter how nice they make the surface, there will always be some preparation to do around the penetrations and some nitpicking of small flaws.

When ended up, the task will be waterproofed for an amount of time far longer than any other coating presently offered. After you’ve experienced polyurea you’ll begin finding r that you can use it on and broadening the method you develop.