FAQs: Installing large self-contained fountain ornaments. And also coping with floods.

Q. My wife and I recently bought a very expensive and extremely heavy ‘stone’ ornament recently for our patio consisting of three bowls in a tier topped with a small figure. It was delivered as a dismantled set of bowls and pedestals with some very rudimentary instructions in regard to setting it up and getting it going. After we struggled for what seemed an interminable nightmare, trying to get it up and running, the thing now seems all ‘cock-a-hoot’ with water shedding out the side of two of the bowls and running down the bottom.It seems to me that the ornament itself is distorted since despite starting on a level patio and then getting it all the bits to fit securely, the bowls themselves are not level.

A. I always feel that retailers that sell these large ornaments should provide a free installation service. You probably have an ornament moulded out concrete, usually referred to a ‘reconstituted stone. These are cast in moulds made of latex with some fairly rudimentary fibreglass support. The concrete is poured into the base of a unit and vibrated into place. The weight of it can fractionally distort it in a very slightly different way each time it is poured. If you have a team of people that are used to the small distortions of the individual units, they can easily deal with them during various stages of construction of the fountain ornament. But this is the first and last time you expect to put this ornament up and you want to get it right first time with no experience. Right?

First of all you need ‘spare muscle’. If things don’t work out the first time it must not seem like too much effort to do it again and again if necessary and with little effort. You need at least two people moving the units while a third threads cables and tubing and adjust flow valves through the relevant holes.

Start from the base, ensuring everything is level as you go as far as you are able. Use old credit cards, loose change or small wedges of slate or stone to adjust the levels.

Take levels across bowls and across the tops of plinths.
If one outlet from a bowl fails to shed water as effectively as its neighbours on both sides then arm yourself with some of the paint the manufacturer uses on the ornament, or a felt tip pen of the same colour and some varnish, and a sharp angled file. With the file gently cut the groove, down which the water should flow, a little deeper. Then touch up the bare concrete. It seems radical on an expensive ornament, but if you manage to call in the suppliers to fix it, they will do something pretty much the same.

Q.With all the rain we have been having recently I find that the level in my pond
is rising to overflow level very quickly requiring the application of the bucket
to bring it down. Is there any device that can be fitted and used at intervals
to pump out the water? Appreciate any advice.

A. Normally rainwater water just finds its own way out of the pool seeping through the edging to drain harmlessly away in the surrounding soil. After all, if the area was patio or grass, the same amount of water falling area would still need to find somewhere to go.However if you have a raised brick edge or the pool is set in hollow or some clayey ground it may not have anywhere to go until the level gets high enough to do some damage. Eventhe best laid pools and ponds have a low level at some point around the edge.
If you haven’t already got one, this is place to install an overflow tube. Ideally, if the ground falls away on one side of the pool you can just run an overflow pipe from level with the water to somewhere it can drain safely.
An extension of this principle is to have a bog garden next to the pool, OR a 'soak-away'. Into both of these a tube can drain down into the bottom, which is full of clean gravel. Bog gardens are in fact constructed with a liner full of holes and the whole of the bottom lined with a minimum of10cm of clean inert gravel gravel. On top of this lie upturned turfs. The tube for carrying the excess water from the pool will lie below these if it is a small bog garden and a large pool; vice-versa if the pool is smaller than the bog garden.

         A cheap sumbersible pump with a float switch can be on guard in times of flood
  
Employingtechnology.
You can have the the water draining into a sump in which a pump sits on guard ready to pump the excess water away to somewhere downhill. Or you could have a pump actually sitting in the pond that comes into action when the water gets to a certain level and switche off when enough water has been pumped out. In this country we can get cheap sump pumps or cellar pumps (they are cheap because they are designed to only work for relatively short periods at a time and although they can shift water efficiently they use a fair amount of electrical power when in operating). Most hardware stores sell a range from a manufacturer that they will recommend and there is always one model that has a 'Float Switch'. These switches control when the pump is switched on by the level of the water lifting a float attached to the side of the pump. By a simple arrangement of clasps or ties, this switch can be made to turn on when the water gets to a dangerous level and turn off at another preordained level. The efficient power of these pumps allows you to dispose of the water anywhere you can get a hosepipe to reach.
There are other sorts of switches too, like the old 'mercury' switch that can be employed to turn a pump on when the water gets to a certain level. These and other electronic switching devices were be prone to failure. Speak to a localelectrical supplier or an electrician about modern equivalents.