ok.. this is one is wayyy off topic..

does anyone have any water features in their gardens?
(oh I can just imagine where this is going )

mrs. G is interested in having a water feature set by a retaining wall in our garden ( this after having the pond removed last year ! ) the thing she is looking at is a half tub.. big sucker.. with an old style hand pump attached, complete with electric pump to recirculate the water.

p.s… this isn’t the one.. but close enuf…

we just had an electrician out to look at getting a circuit outside, and of course he is all for doing the work, but was nice enuf to warn us, that as we don’t live at the cottage evaporation can be an issue.. that he has a similar water feature and it can get thru a bucket of water a week.

so…anyone still reading this?…

is it really that bad?…if we had one of our staff ( *L* cleaning lady once a week, gardener every so often ) top it up.. would it likely be ok?

Why would you leave a water feature running if you’re not in the house. **** sake we’re being told to conserve energy left, right and centre and you want to leave a water feature on for no reason at all.

*mark one for the green police*

I nevah said the pump would be left on….evaporation my boy.. ya know sunshine, natural evaporation

the pump would only be on when we or someone were there… ok with the pump off there would be no danger of burning the pump obviously but we were told they can stink to high heaven when the water level gets too low.

So can’t either you or someone else fill it up when you get there or do you need the thing on for you or your guests arriving.

the question I’m asking is really how bad other people find the evap. issue is.

if the sucker has to be filled every coupld of days in hot weather it’s not worth the bother.. if it can be done on a weekly basis we’ll look into it.

( if you believe as the weathermen say it’s a hot summer coming.)

and yes… it would be a nice feature for arriving guests

Make a cover for it when it is unattended.

yes.. but we are also hoping for plants in it.. water plants obviously
.
ok, this may just be a step too far.

I think I’ll just bin the water feature and go for a beer.

I think I’ll just bin the water feature and go for a beer.

Beer’s mostly water, of course.

Lily pads would cut down on evaporation.

You’ll get way more evaporation with the water moving than you will do with it sat stationary. Depending on design it may also lose masses of water through splashing/spillage so it’s worth seeing it running and sticking your hand beside it. Without any movement you may lose 1/2″ to 1″ per week in summer depending on the amount of sun it gets, surface area, amount of wind blowing over it etc.

We have a 2.4m x 2.4m raised pond. The water at the edges is about 5 cm deep (child friendly) with a deeper central trench to act as a reservoir. It has a black liner and a pumped splashing water feature bit

To summarise- very shallow pond with large surface area and dark base to attract heat and moving water. During the hot days we lose about 3cm a day. The one time we left it and went away it was almost dry after 2 weeks.

Should be A LOT less with a little barrel thing like yo are talking about be probably need topping up once a fortnight.

thanks thepurist, and WCA.. finally some actually useful info.

we often have kids (renters kids) at the cottage, which is in truth why we did away with the pond, so I guess with the self contained feature we would have to allow for a certain spillage…kids sticking their hands under the pump and such.

No one’s putting a lily pad in my pint.

Whoot!! Whoot!!

WCA in useful information posting scandel!!!

Doesn’t even mention the Big Bike Bash!!!

Damn, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.

WCA… sorry if I harmed your rep here…useful info and all.

and BIG-BIKE-BASH?.. I don’t think I’ve heard of that.. can you tell me about it?

😉 😆

and as I’m sitting here thinking about ( waiting for BBB info ) … when we had our pond that never ran out of water.. it ran out of goldfish thanks to the local heron population but never water.

*bingo* the pond was fed by a hose buried under some rocks.

now I remember.

the former pond, may she rest in peace…