Water chute feature

You may have thought a water chute is a sheet of material, going through a wall with a pipe connected to the back, If you did that the water would "shoot at speed" probably further than you wanted it to.

To make a water chute work properly it must have a "header tank" (or pool if it is a water fall)  this allows the water to loose its velocity, It must also have a "lip" for the water to fall evenly. The width and length of the lip depends on how wide you want the water to be. If the lip does not protrude from the wall the water will simply run down the wall, which is how some features like water walls work. The reservoirs does not have to be that big just enough for the pumped water to lose its velocity. Water walls have a reservoirs on the top of the wall which is only as wide as the wall itself. You can also use a large diameter pipe. (See link at the bottom of this page)

The water returns to a sump below the fall of the chute and is pumped back via a waterfall pump *

You do not have to use "water tanks" as we did, but these are readily available

* You can use almost any pump, however it must be able to pump the water to the highest point (head height) of your tank, the amount / speed of water flowing over the edge will also depend on the pump used.

The end result

 A small section of the "front" of the water tank was removed to allow for the plate to be attached

As the picture shows the sides of the chute are folded up to stop the water escaping

You can quite clearly see a section of the tank front was removed to allow for the chute

You can make a smaller version for a pond waterfall, here

Suggestions index

*