How to Install Your Own Italian Courtyard Fountain

Hi Friends!!

Here is my Disappearing Water Feature.  (The technical definition!)  I'll do my very best to detail out how we installed our backyard fountain.

First off, you will need to have an electrical outlet for your fountain.  (funny, a fountain has nothing to do with having a faucet near by!) The workers who did our back patio put a white pvc pipe under the pavers so that a cord could be pushed through there and arrive at our outlet without the cord having to be draped across the patio!  If you had your fountain by the side of your home, reaching the outlet inconspicuously may not be a big deal.

Next I needed to buy a basin that could hold the water which the pump would go in.  The largest circle size I found was 48” round.  The bottom of my fountain was 32”.   Looking back, I wish I found one just a little bigger.  The “splash” zone on my fountain goes a good 12” outside of the fountain area.  My fountain is a little over 3’ tall though, so if you had a shorter fountain, this may not be an issue for you.

See how far the water splashes AROUND the rock area?  Oh well, on a hot day it will feel good

I had NO idea that those babies are around 400.00!  The thing I DID like about this basin is it already had a top on it that could hold the weight of a very heavy fountain. 


                                         
I also had to buy a pump to push the water from the basin to the top of my fountain.  We did 1900 GPH. 

                                          


Here is a great photo on the breakdown of how a fountain works. Once I saw this diagram, I really understood what was going on.

Photo source Pondliner.com

We have a drip line (attached to the sprinkler system)  inside our fountain so it keeps the water inside from going dry (which would ruin our pump).  You can also do this manually, you would just need to check the levels and apply a hose to your basin whenever it got low.  Some people will have an automatic water valve attached to their fountain basin.  That is the BEST way to go, but for some reason, we ended up just with a drip line. 

To turn your fountain on, it just needs to be plugged in, or if you can plan in advanced like we were able to, you can just put your fountain power on a switch inside your house! 

There you  have it!  All the fun technical stuff.  Next time, I can do it myself. 

Did you learn anything you didn't already know about installing a fountain?  If anyone would like to tell about their fountain experiences please leave us a comment!

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