making a water feature-conflicting ideas!

as in my previos post I have decided to have a water featyre (at the moment plumping towards a monolith type). After looking at various places on the net it seems that most recommend digging a hole to fit a resevoir tank , putting pump in, putting grid and mesh on top and feeding hose through that to final top bit.

went this morning to a local place who speacilises just in water features/fountains. He told me that that method wasnt the best and told me how they would do it.

basically ou still dig a big hole , then putin pump covered by this cone he makes. The tank is then filled with pea gravel i think he said and the final object on top. he tells me the advantage of doing it this way is that more water is likely to be collected as there is a much bigger surface area for collection than the ones i have seen, the pea-gravel will basically act as a filter and he reckons it would only have to be cleaned once a year. In fact doing it his way works out cheaper i think than the prices I got from elsewhere but just wanted others opinions on the different methods there are or is it just dwn to personal preference? thanks

 

l-g, I would go back and ask the guy what do you do if the impellor fails. But, basically, it is all down to personal choice.

 

Water garden knows his stuff and will probably be along soon but the water features ive done have been constructed as the first method.

The problem I see with pea gravel method is how do you clean it out? presumably youd have to scoop it all out then rinse it over a sive?

 

Thatâ��s very kind of you pro Gard. (Where did you want the �£20 sending?)

However you do it you need a sump, be it a shop brought one or a hole in the ground with a liner.

With most monoliths the water gently runs down the faces of said monolith, with a fountain it is different.

A fountain projects water to a given height, the wind can (and does) catch the water and can blow it outside of the sump catchment area. This is known as the JW rule

The problem with monoliths is that of stability.

You build a sump, put mesh on it put you monolith on it (attached to the pump hose) cover mesh in decorative material sorted. No it isn�t. The monolith has to be stable, just resting on mesh it isn�t that stable, the mesh needs support, if the monolith is tall and thin, it can easily be knocked or pulled over, either by accident or curiosity, by putting the monolith in the bottom of the sump along with the pump and filling with decorative material (lets say gravel) the gravel will hold the monolith more securely than if it were just standing on mesh.

How ever, if the pump fails or needs adjusting you now have to dig it out of the gravel, and when you put it back in, you find that you can't because the remaining gravel has fallen in to where the pump was, so you have to empty the remaining gravel, and you can�t use a sharp implement such as a shovel for fear of puncturing the liner.

Another thing, if the sump is full of gravel the only space for the water is?

Between the gaps in the gravel, now if its say 80% gravel, 10% monolith (by volume) that only leaves 10% for water.

If the sun shines this year, it will heat the water as it runs down the sides of the monolith and cause it to evaporate.

You only have 10% of volume of the potential 90-100% you could have had, so to compensate you have to build a bigger sump that is really required.

Also as you only have 10% water to start with the pump may only pump to 5% since the water level has dropped below the pumps input port.

If you want a monolith rest it on something secure (secure it if you can with a water proof adhesive, genuine silicone sealant works) and cover it with a mesh (obviously with a hole for the monolith) another idea is to make a ââ?¬Å?trap doorââ?¬Â for access to the pump (you cut a whole in the mesh and cut a bigger piece of mesh to cover the hole.

Oddly enough, today I was working on a new feature, sorry its dark, but you can see that there is 90% water (hopefully I will be able to change the picture in daylight)


At the end of the day the choice is yours.

[ 24. February 2008, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: water-garden ]