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Water feature cost? How much does a water feature cost? Let us help you, for a few ideas why not visit our suggestions page How much You may be wondering how much it will really cost. Well that really depends on what you want. Why not sit down with a piece of paper and pencil and draw what you want first. You can of course buy the cheapest products you can find a polythene liner will only last 2- 3 years, but a butyl liner will last 20 years minimum When designing a water feature or fountain there has to be some compromise between your what YOU want and YOUR budget you can not make "Niagara falls" with a water pistol, (although some people think they can) so size / cost of pump and all building materials must be taken into consideration. Maintenance Something that is quite often forgotten about is maintenance, ponds and water features should be cleaned annually, when designing a water feature access to the pump should be taken into consideration Pump The "heart" of any water feature or pond. Pumps should be considered not just bought because it was cheap, will it give the correct flow rate, head height, for what you want, how much will it cost to run? We recently had an enquiry from some one who has "acquired" a spray ring with 20 nozzles he brought a pump from a store tried to connect it and couldn't. The ring had a 1 1/2 inch inlet, his pump only had a 1/2 inch outlet, ok , yes you can get adaptors but if he did do this the jets would only be a few cm high, he wanted in the region of 2m. The reason is because the ring has 20 nozzles, it has a very high water demand, (he would need the equivalent of 40 of the pumps he did get) Even some of our spray rings have to have at least 2 of our biggest pumps. Material For a garden pond use a good quality liner, for a professional fountain we suggest concrete but easier still is a preformed fibre-glass pool, its cheaper and very easy to install, can be above or bellow ground. Summing up Like all good things you should start by designing your project with pencil and paper. (mistakes / alterations easily changed) Decide which jets you would like, decide on which pump will be able to make the chosen jet reach as high as required. You may also want to see our choosing a pump page which is here all fountains / water features should abide by the JW rule which is here You may also want to consider lighting The actual cost will depend on what you have AND quality of the components you choose, a pump for example from the local diy superstore may be cheap to purchase, but will it be able to run your chosen jet (foaming nozzles have a high water demand) also how much will it cost to run. in short you will get what you pay for. It may surprise you to learn that most commercial fountains you see cost £10k and up, but that is also the cost of filtration, sumps you can not see etc. Commercial fountain nozzles can cost hundreds of pounds and some are even thousands. We are not saying that a fountain for you will be anywhere near this much, just that big fountains are not as cheap as you may think they are. |
