Naturagart - Fleeces

Fleeces

Liner Protection
A pile of fibres that reaches to the hip is compacted down to a few millimetres with millions of needle pricks. This fleece acts like a bullet-proof vest by distributing a point load onto a larger surface area. Additionally, special sealing fibres can neutralise the spot where damage occurred. Therefore, fleece underneath the liner is especially important. Also, due to soil bacteria a liner ages quicker on the ground side than on the water side. Fleece900 creates a barrier that makes it difficult for bacteria to proliferate.

Fleece900 (900 grams of fibres per mÂ²) has become a standard for larger pond installations. The extremely robust material protects the liner from point loads and repairs itself in case of damage.

Through the combination of Fleece900 and liner in our underwater park we have created a sealing that is equivalent to a 20mm thick liner and that comprises 4 separate layers of self repair.

Frequent Risk: Loads from Below The greatest risk for a liner are stones, roots and settling of earth. They lead to stresses that are beyond any control. In any event, very uneven ground with stones and chunks of clay has to be evened out with sand. Please note that stones close to the surface will tend to migrate upward through frost. Only Fleece900 offers secure protection. Use it whenever your budget allows! Liner and clay sometimes don't go well together. Therefore they are better separated with fleece (or sand).	You can prepare the ground as much as you like, it can always change. Mice dig tunnels under the liner. They won't gnaw at the liner, but the liner can sink into tunnels and cavities.	Roots can reach the liner, become thicker and lift it up. Whatever happens, Fleece900 makes sure that loads are widely dispersed. Fleece330 is not sufficient here, because roots can grow through it.
Risk from Above Often the risk of damage from above is bigger than from below. This is especially true in public installations. If the risk is relatively small the composite mat is a good solution. For extreme loads (vandalism, horse washing pond) Fleece900 is recommended. If necessary the upper layer of fleece can be reinforced with a layer of mortar or concrete. Thusly protected liners are practically indestructible because they have no contact with loads whatsoever. Read more about composite mats here. _	Load from Above: Soft Causes Damage! Take a ball-pen and a sheet of paper. Where can you write best? On top of a hard surface or on carpet?No doubt the pen will easily break the paper on top of the softer surface.Something similar happens in ponds: Soft carpet underneath the liner is more likely damaging. If the load comes from the liner side a soft underlay will easily overstretch. The harder the ground beneath the better!	When the unprotected liner is stretched it necessarily becomes thinner and tears. F900 underneath the liner stops stretching; an additional layer of fleece on top is the perfect protection.
A pile of shards with slivers and knife-sharp edges is covered with Fleece900 and the green 1mm strong NaturaGart liner.	Out 3,000 kilo tractor rolls over it. The several centimetre high tread squeezes liner and fleece into the shards. A pressure like 20m under water.	Knife-sharp shards and needle-like splinters have stretched the liner quite a bit, but even with the immense pressure the liner is not damaged.
Fault Tolerant A hole in the liner doesn't immediately mean the end of a pond! The mix of fibres will help seal even large holes - the system remains waterproof. For example: While building the Underwater Park winter arrived faster than expected and we had to stop welding just before they were finished. A hole of about 1m² was only sealed with Fleece900. It quickly became as waterproof as the liner.	If at one point the liner is damaged, water will get through the hole, the pond leaks.	Not so with NaturaGart Fleece900. Ground particles stop up the fleece and make it waterproof.
Differences in Quality As with liners, there are big quality and price differences between fleeces. Some feel just as thick but are much cheaper. Why?	Many cheap fleeces contain organic fibres (cotton, jute, etc) that quickly rot and hence are totally useless.	Test: You can easily push a ball-pen through a cheap fleece (left). NaturaGart Fleece330 stops all but the tip of the pen (arrow).
Waterproof Example: For construction roads fleece is laid beneath the gravel on soft grounds. It doesn't get pressed into the ground very deeply and thus saves material. To prevent water from forming puddles, such a fleece has to let water through. NaturaGart Fleece900 has a different aim: Apart from its strength it is supposed to seal possible damage to the liner. This fleece can have only very fine pores.	For road construction fleeces are usually made with stiffer unaligned polypropylene fibres. This leaves enough hollow spaces inside the fleece so that rain water can easily seep away.	In NaturaGart fleece the load bearing fibres are horizontally aligned and tightly packed together. This leaves only very small spaces which quickly get stopped up with particles: The fleece becomes waterproof.
Strongly Solidified A determining factor for price and quality is the needling density:	Cheap but low quality: Fast feed rate, few connection points, poor compacting. The result is a thicker fleece that has less strength.	Good but expensive: Slower feed rate, less production, but denser needling. The result is a thinner but stronger fleece.
Fibre Compound Polyester fibres quill slightly when in the ground and make become about twice as strong as equally thick polypropylene fleeces because of the increased friction between the fibres.	Wiry, stiff PP fibres can't be connected as tightly. The fleece becomes thicker and looks more 'valuable' when in reality it is less compact and less effective.	Softer polyester fibres are connected much more tightly. The fleece becomes more compact. It is thinner, but much stronger.
Long Fibers The longer and stronger the fibres, the higher he strength - and the price, because short fibres are cheap.	Short fibres have less connection points which reduces resistance - the fleece becomes less strong.	Longer fibres have more connecting points - the fleece becomes stronger.
NaturaGart's concept: The compact skeleton of load bearing fibres is interspersed with sealing fibres. That is an advantage!	NaturaGart Fleece330: Protection from small, sharp-edged stones, fixates larger stone fragments underneath a layer of sand. Prevents stones from migrating upward through walking on the liner, frost and root growth. The least expensive solution.	NaturaGart Fleece900: For surfaces with lots of stones, cushions bumps between the stones. Resistant against the pressure from roots. In case of risk of vandalism also above the liner. Stops up possible holes in the liner.
Protection from above Above the liner shore and composite mats give perfect protection. The shore mats lie on the shore and are completely penetrated by roots. The composite mat lies inside the pond and is glued to the liner on the banks. The surface is coated with mortar which creates a hard, fibrous concrete. These liners, with this kind of protection, are practically indestructible. The advantage: The whole system is flexible like chain mail or a bulletproof vest. Fleece and shore mat prevent loads from reaching the liner.