A project
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We designed and installed a new fountain for the front yard by the porch. Here are some pics and descriptions. This thread is especially for my buddy Cats, because she requested some pics. :blush:
Hubby designed the water reclamation system using some unorthodox pieces, such as a sewage basin for a reservoir, a toilet tank float, other various plumbing parts, and lots of stuff we had around the house, garage, backyard, and basement. The decorative parts of the fountain were purchased new, or at least new to us.
The small rock in the basin is inside a rubber liner that catches the water from the fountain, and drains it by gravity to the reservoir tank on the left through a 4-inch PVC pipe. The water gets filtered by a grate and a mesh screen before entering the reservoir.
The reservoir tank has the pump to direct the screened water back to the fountain. The reservoir also has the float mechanism inside that will signal the water source to refill the reservoir to the desired level. It's just like in a toilet tank. When the water level is too low, the water is turned on to refill the tank. The small black hose on the side carries the recirculating water back to the fountain, going up to the mid section of the fountain where the size of the pipe is reduced to match up to the pipe in the top piece of the fountain. That transition occurs in the section between the two flat pieces of cut bluestone.
The base pedestal was a beast to lift at 500 pounds. Hubby had wanted to use a winch and dolly system to haul the base from the back of my truck, ramping it down to the bluestone base of the installation. He quickly changed his mind when he couldn't even get the pedestal on the dolly. We are fortunate to have an equipment rental business a mile away on our street. We rented the forklift, drove it to our house, fitted the pedestal with our tow straps, hoisted the pedestal in the air, and hauled it to the bluestone pad.
It took several times of positioning and repositioning to get it centered well. It also took a temporary removal of an eight-foot section of the boxwood hedge, perennials, and brick mowing edge. I took care of all that, and the plants are returned to their places. I still need to reinstall the brick edging in that section.
At this point, the fountain was assembled and functioning. We tested it several times at various steps of the process. The plants are a mess yet in this pic. You can also see the yard was torn up by the forklift tires. That's another project for me to take care of with raking, reseeding, covering with straw, and watering regularly.
It's in place! The bottom pedestal is brighter than the rest of it, but time and some moss will take care of that. There are ways to naturally age concrete to tone down the brightness.
A closer picture of the top pieces of the fountain, including the midsection that houses the pipe transition, and the top. This is a vintage top that has a small bowl with four lion faces that are 'spitters', allowing water to come out of the basin at four points. The water bubbles up from the center of the very top, flowing into the bowl. The pump has enough pressure to shoot the water several feet into the air, but we prefer a trickle to reduce the splashing and make a gentle sound. It will be nice for the smaller birds to have the two bluestone ledges to get a gentle splash or a place to dip their beaks for a drink. The bluestone has ridges and spaces for shallow pools.
To recap on the various materials:
The bottom stone platform is cut bluestone with smooth Winona Stone, aka river rock, underneath in the catch area with the rubber liner.
The bottom pedestal is cast concrete, as are the middle section and top. These came from two different places in our area.
The ledges are cut bluestone that were leftovers from another person's project. I bought it from a very nice nursery/landscaping firm in our area, and they let me buy it at their cost. :)
The stone perimeter is made from reclaimed granite pavers from former tunnels in the Twin Cities. We got these several years ago, and we have LOTS of them. They are going to be used for more projects in the back yard.Plants are yet to be determined, and you can expect another thread for that discussion. There will be low plants in a narrow strip in front of the granite pavers, and other taller ones in the rest of the planting areas by the fountain.
I don't know if this will open for you. It's a ten-second video of the fountain running.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMWQa03lQ7xXsHFFtDQSC7Na7lPXg7ow8mjkQ1V -
The video didn't work for me. Can you try again? I'd love to see the water.
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When hubby retires, you can hire him out as a fountain specialist!
Seriously, nice work.
He's so ingenious in designing the mechanicals for this. I am so impressed with his use of non-traditional parts for this project: a sewage tank and toilet float!
He uses my designs for things like the bluestone floor, the stone wall around it that overlaps the edge of the bluestone floor to hide the rubber liner, the bluestone ledges, etc. However, none of this would work without his ideas for the plumbing. I got lucky with this guy! 😍
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Very nice! You never need to refill it.
It should be very low maintenance for daily functioning. In the fall, the pump will need to be drained, as will the hoses. The bluestone floor blocks most of the debris, and I will watch to see how often that needs cleaning. The river rock below will catch more of any small debris, so the filters should not have much work either. For the bluestone floor, I have a small shop vac to take care of that. I can see having a small shop vac stored in my utility cabinet at the back of the porch.
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Beautiful fountain, and a heavy one. Woof! Nice hummingbird feeder too. Looks like you have a beautiful house.
Where did you get those shades in the background? I recently ordered and installed some very similar for our porch and it's been a game changer in the summer afternoon sun when we eat dinner out there.
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Beautiful fountain, and a heavy one. Woof! Nice hummingbird feeder too. Looks like you have a beautiful house.
Where did you get those shades in the background? I recently ordered and installed some very similar for our porch and it's been a game changer in the summer afternoon sun when we eat dinner out there.
Beautiful fountain, and a heavy one. Woof! Nice hummingbird feeder too. Looks like you have a beautiful house.
Where did you get those shades in the background? I recently ordered and installed some very similar for our porch and it's been a game changer in the summer afternoon sun when we eat dinner out there.
I got them several years ago on Amazon. They were so cheap that I wondered how well they would last. I think we've had them about 8 or 9 years now, and they are still going strong. I've only had to change how the roller string hooks on the far top end, which was quite simple.
We love them. The porch gets a lot of sun in the afternoons, and these make a huge difference for comfort. That and a ceiling fan are the ticket for the warm days.
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Beautiful fountain, and a heavy one. Woof! Nice hummingbird feeder too. Looks like you have a beautiful house.
Where did you get those shades in the background? I recently ordered and installed some very similar for our porch and it's been a game changer in the summer afternoon sun when we eat dinner out there.
I got them several years ago on Amazon. They were so cheap that I wondered how well they would last. I think we've had them about 8 or 9 years now, and they are still going strong. I've only had to change how the roller string hooks on the far top end, which was quite simple.
We love them. The porch gets a lot of sun in the afternoons, and these make a huge difference for comfort. That and a ceiling fan are the ticket for the warm days.
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Beautiful fountain, and a heavy one. Woof! Nice hummingbird feeder too. Looks like you have a beautiful house.
Where did you get those shades in the background? I recently ordered and installed some very similar for our porch and it's been a game changer in the summer afternoon sun when we eat dinner out there.
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Kudos to you and hubby for an excellent job!
And many thanks for your painstaking post showing and explaining it all.
Very elegant! You should call it the Duck Fountain -- calm and serene up top, churning like crazy underneath.
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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Beautiful and ingenious work!
You are the person to really appreciate the plumbing technology hubby used. It's not quite traditional, but it really works well.
I should clarify that the float in the reservoir really is intended for ponds, not toilets, but it looks just like the ones you see in toilet tanks. Being made for an outdoor use, it's a bit more beefy.
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Kudos to you and hubby for an excellent job!
And many thanks for your painstaking post showing and explaining it all.
Very elegant! You should call it the Duck Fountain -- calm and serene up top, churning like crazy underneath.
Kudos to you and hubby for an excellent job!
And many thanks for your painstaking post showing and explaining it all.
Very elegant! You should call it the Duck Fountain -- calm and serene up top, churning like crazy underneath.
We could call it the Lazy Fountain, too. Once it's installed and fully set up, it takes care of itself for filling and running.
You are correct that it's very calm and serene. It makes thin sheets of water on the bluestone tiers that gently drop to the floor. It splashes just a tiny bit out to the granite pavers, and is rather quiet, but it's nothing like a typical fountain that has a huge splash area and is noisy.
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I would have fun building that. I'm not a very talented plumber, but I can dig holes.
