Cheapest/best way of making stream/waterfall?

shell820810

Hi

I would like to put a small stream on my gently sloping lawn. Any movement in the stream will be powered by solar power, so I need something that will look good when there is no power.

I was thinking a stepped stream, so that a small pool can gather on each step, and it doesnt look dried up and awful looking when there is no water running.

Does this sound feasible?

If so, what is the best way to go about this - a plastic preformed type that fits in? Dig the shape of the stream into the ground and fit a pool liner around it, and put natural stones and pebbles in etc.

Has anyone done this before?

wallbash

Lets take it one step at a time.

I have a standard water fall by my pond. Water is pumped to a filter a couple of feet above the surface of the pond , Then returns to the pond via a waterfall .

So you have to work out if a solar pump , is capable of pumping the water to the top of the first 'pond' Have seen the effect , done by Charlie Dimmock ( missed them )
on the ground force tv prog. But I bet it was a 'normal' mains pump.

You can get solar pumps, to run fountains, so I'm guessing it could be possible, depending how far the water had to be pumped.

If you ever get it to work I DEMAND that you post some pictures.

annie123

going to need a good size panel to get it to pump water!
If you already have one, fine, if not I suggest you look into that first, the small ones for ponds barely create a 12" high 'fountain' even on a bright sunny day.
I've tried 2 now and given up with them.

wallbash

First annie123 has got some experience of the problem, i'm just guessing... but there 's nowt on tv :rotfl:

This pump claims 280 LPH with a 85 cm fountain, impressive,


http://www.primrose-london.co.uk/triple-head-solar-fountain-p-1813.html?cPath=1_213_131

And cheaper than i thought

Dave101t

i had one like that, but the solar panel was built into the fountain and simply floated on the pond surface. it was great while in full sun, cheaper too.
only a 20-30cm fountain but it had that trickling water sound that i liked.
it was a cheap 20 quid from focus or somewhere like that.

annie123

wallbash wrote: »

First annie123 has got some experience of the problem, i'm just guessing... but there 's nowt on tv :rotfl:

This pump claims 280 LPH with a 85 cm fountain, impressive,


http://www.primrose-london.co.uk/triple-head-solar-fountain-p-1813.html?cPath=1_213_131

And cheaper than i thought

yep, tried it in my dads garden, even hooked 2 solar panels (the sort that come with the fountains) together to try to get it to pump the water up 2'
Dad now has a nice waterfall which he turns on and off from a switch inside his house;)

If you find a way to do it I would love to know, cause I'm going to copy you if it works!

Dad tried the pre moulded ones but its very difficult to get the soil exactly to the same shape, if you dont they split (found out the hard way), we just dug out our shape in the end, and used pond liner, very easy to do and not expensive.

good luck

Beenie

We are just installing a pond and waterfall in our garden. You definately need a mains-powered pump to get the water up the slope to make a reasonable 'waterfall.' Solar is not reliable or powerful enough to do that.

shell820810

Thanks for all the comments. I posted somewhere else and they also said that a solar pump would not be able to pump the water up the slope.

So now I am thinking of just having the stream with shallow pools on each step, and a bubbling pebble pool at the bottom.

Do you think that would look ok? No movement down the stream. Just like a sloped collection of rock pools?

elliep_2

With no movement in the pools I'd guess that you'd be quite likely to get stagnation problems. Perhaps if you were to manually pour a bucket of fresh (or chemically treated) water into the top pool every week or something that might help?

wallbash

be powered by solar power

May I ask why ? why not the standard electric pump.

shell820810

The area we want to do is a small front lawn.

http://photos.orange.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=106516424&photo_id=2034519651

There are no power cables left for it, and to bring power to it we would need to dig up a newly tarmaced driveway, and drill a hole into the house. Neither of which I want to do.