Essex, Essex, Essex.

3 visits to Essex.

Barking.  Extreme Koi forum member Mr Kahlon had his new koi pond foam lined and glassed by GRP a few days ago.

Thank you very much to you Hardip for your hospitality during our visit and for building such a well built pond for us to work on!

Stanford le Hope.  Graham is a member of A4 Koi forum, Koimag and Koi Quest forum.  The pond has been been built for exatly a year and we were called in to apply our grp system onto an immaculately laid render.  Our website shows most ponds we work on having our PU foam lining system installed by us first but this pool goes to show that we will of course still fibreglass rendered ponds.  When the render is as good as we arrived to the fibreglass is bound to turn out 100%!  Great pond, 7 feet deep, a well planned and thought out filtration room out of sight in the garage too.

Follow this link to what shows a true koi keepers dedication to koi keeping.

Grahams pond diary.

If you view the entire thread you'll appreciate the massive amount of work that goes into a project such as this.  We are always delighted to be the chosen contractor to install the water proofing system after so much hard work has gone in.

Great pond in the making you have there Graham.  May you have many years enjoyment from it in the future and thanks for choosing GRP.

Our final visit for the week was to without doubt the best pond I have ever had the pleasure to fibreglass in the entire country.

I've spoken so highly of this koi pond so many times over the years and I couldn't resist a visit to see Dave again today as we were working nearby on Grahams pond in Stanford.


Lucy and I were welcomed with a cup of tea as usual and a walk through of the main pond, the breeding tanks,filtration systems and the beautiful garden surroundings for it all.  This year we see everything blooming in it's full splendourwith new grape vines, banana trees and the ever gorgeous acers......

Dave was showing us his koi. Some of them he spawned himself.  Well not himself exactly, the fish did the technical bits, Dave grew the fry on then moved them into the main display pond and it's really clear that Dave is truly dedicated to his koi keeping, filtration and water keeping and doing things the best way possible in all aspects.

Dave built the pond back in 2006 and if you click this link

UK's best koi pond

you'll see how this brilliant koi pond has progressed over the years.

Dave and I. Always a pleasure Dave, always will be. 


Matt

Kent, Derbyshire and Warwickshire.

Had a great week with visits to Kent, Warwickshire and our hometown of Derbyshire.

Bruce in Kent had been in touch with us for several months whilst he was building his brilliant pond near Hastings.  Our second visit to the town in as many years saw us complete his foam lining and fibreglassing over two days.

Here's the pond.

Sorry the picture doesn't do Bruces work justice but take it from me it's a really good pond with hardscaping around it planned for later this year to compliment it all.

I did a solo visit in Derbyshire to seal this water feature which was partly full of water on my arrival!  Soon sorted that and went on the same day to leave a fully sealed mirror reflection pool as seen here.

The Warwickshire job was so well built it was a dream for us to work on.  Meticulous planning by the client, excellent communications between us and a site visit prior to our attendance as we glassed a pond 4 miles away the week before we came saw Ian with his pond and water cascades fully glassed and awaiting filling with water at the weekend.....

This is the pool we did the 3D filming on.  See our blog for the footage when I get chance to edit it.

All in all we had a really enjoyable week, met some great people as always and look forward to updating the blog with pictures of their finished projects......

Huge thanks as usual to Lucy, Fanjita, Nick and the customers that trust us to do this critical work for them.

Matt.

3D video shoot.

I'm not sure if too many people have 3D capability but it's an experimental thing, no disruption to the job and offers another aspect to interactivity via the website.

Click the link below to view the video.  Please note it is in 3D.

3D Fibreglassing video

Thoroughly delighted!

Todays clients kindly took the trouble to send a very warming email.

I am not sure who is more pleased.  Me for receiving such a great email or the clients?
To be trusted to work on a pond that to date has taken 18 months of very hard work is the real compliment.

Matt, a very happy owner of GRP!

Important announcement. New email address.

Our email address has changed to grpspecialists@gmail.com

The old hotmail address will be shut down at the end of July 2011.


The website has been updated with this new gmail address.

Japan Competition winner.

Mr Shaw of Castleford, West Yorkshire won GRP's  'Trip to Japan' competition earlier this year.

Jim rang me personally to say how over the moon he was to have won the competition that was hosted exclusively by the Yorkshire Koi Society and it was planned for April 2011 but due to the March tsunami wreaking havoc in Japan it was decided that we and Darren from Absolute Koi who is his guide for the trip ought to postpone until a more suitable time.

Hopefully things will have settled down in Japan so Jim can finally look forward to and I quote him here "The trip of a lifetime.......Japan, the place I only ever dream of going to as a koi enthusiast but I actually won!"

Jim's win was posted on the forum back in February and I believe he'll be posting pictures of his trip on the forum from Japan so definitely one to watch out for in October. 

Well done again Jim Shaw.  By all accounts you are a most worthy winner of the competition.


GRP Fixed it for Jim :)

Being talked about :)

One of our new customers asked if this was us when they saw it online so I had to take a look.

Anyone used GRP?

Very satisfying that previous clients say good things about us.  Gives me great confidence going into  tomorrows job (not that I need it of course) which you can see here.

Daz and Helens pond

There's a header pool attached to the main pond PLUS we'll be glassing Britains youngest koi keeper's pond in the same two days!

Daz got in touch with us way back in March and has kept in touch not just to ask for build advice tips but also to keep us informed of the build progress so we can be there when we are needed rather than have to wait for our diary to clear.  We glassed a pond 30 miles away from this job last week for a member of Daz's koi club East Yorkshire Koi Society.  (Link on page right.)

I'll add some pics of the job when we get back in a couple of days.

Matt

Update 20/7

It rained.
Then it rained again.
Rained some more.
Rained again very heavily.
It changed to persistent rain.
Rained again.
And again.
And then some.

The cover held up. All three ponds are now foam lined and glassed.  A return visit to site tomorrow to inspect the job, sand down and to apply the topcoat will leave the ponds fully waterproof.

The build quality of the pond is very good.  A slight exception is on the floor near the drain but I fixed that with the foam.

It rained so heavily that water worked its way through the block work walls and underneath the foam at the end opposite the window.  Once this was dealt with I carried on working.  At about 4:30 it was time to seal Keiran's pond that I foam lined yesterday.

By the time that was sealed I called it a day. A fresh day tomorrow will see the ponds topcoated in black.

It rained most of the way home too.

Daz and Helen's pond foam lined and glassed.

and Britain's Youngest Koi Keeper's pond :)  Also the smallest koi pond we've ever glassed!

I had a fantastic time yet again in Yorkshire and a huge thanks to Helen's hospitality and tea making skills! 

Next stop for us is Fleet in Hampshire on Tuesday, a small water feature to work on in Derby Wednesday then on to Warwick on Friday.