WATER FEATURE. HOW 2

[foxhole]

Have a stone monolith to add to garden and create a water feature, water will cascade down front of rock and then be collected and recirculated.
Looking at ready made collection units they tend to be too weak to hold the stone ,270kg or too small to support base [around 450mm square] and are very expensive.
Was thinking of standing the stone on used or cheap shower tray and collecting run off in sunk water tank to side, this puts all the weight on the ground and give easy access to submerged pump. Tank will have lid and every exposed area of tray and tank covered with large pebbles .
Tank just above ground level to allow overflow due to rain etc.
Any comments, suggestions , problem with this idea?

 

[foxhole]

So went ahead with my plan and all turned out well , second hand shower tray works well as collection point for the water feature . Slab over the top of pump sump to the left of rock.

 

[mctav]

Looks great, that is a great idea to use a shower tray. Got a similar project for next year and I have an old shower tray, might put it to use now and save a few quid.

 

[foxhole]

Looks great, that is a great idea to use a shower tray. Got a similar project for next year and I have an old shower tray, might put it to use now and save a few quid.

Used a plastic wash up bowl for sump, has a perforated rim which allows over fill from rain etc to spill onto ground, immediate perimeter of bowl is packed with pea shingle to aid drainage.

 

[efunc]

View attachment 171135 View attachment 171136 So went ahead with my plan and all turned out well , second hand shower tray works well as collection point for the water feature . Slab over the top of pump sump to the left of rock.

This looks superb, and very similar to something I'm contemplating. I have a very heavy concrete monolith, but the spot I want to place it can't be dug out because it has some kind of concrete/masonry floor. Immediately to the left however I've been able to dig a decent sized (60x60cm) hole in the earth. I was considering an off-the-shelf 90L sump with galvanised steel grid lid, but wasn't sure how it could work. Looking at your project it seems like there is definitely potential!

If you don't mind me asking, now that it's been in place for a couple of years, how is it fairing? Is there anything different you'd do? One question I have is the size of the reservoir. I just selected 90L by random as the largest reasonable size I could get, because I didn't want it running dry. However your's appears to be much smaller. Is that an issue or does it work out OK? Secondly, you have a completely sealed lid, but I was considering the grill lid so that it had the opportunity of receiving a top up from rain water. Could that be an issue, or would you recommend sealing it off?

Another couple of questions too: Was the shower tray sufficient to hold up the weight of the rock? Did you need to reinforce it? How did you run the hose under the rock?

Thanks for the advise on such an old thread! Any more pictures of the workings you might still have would be great.

 

[foxhole]

Drilled the rock from the rear at 45degrees and clipped hose to rear to feed top of rock with water .We are moving shortly so rock is now sitting on a trolley ready for the move.

 

[efunc]

I see, thanks. And did you use a shower waste outlet to collect the runoff from the tray back into the reservoir?

 

[foxhole]

I see, thanks. And did you use a shower waste outlet to collect the runoff from the tray back into the reservoir?

Shower waste connected to flexi waste which made routing simple .”