The garden fountain and pond pump, the state of the art or how to pick the right one

In the beginning there was Otter from Beresford and a whole lot of things that looked like headless Daleks. These were all the pumps we had for water gardens for pumping water up fountains and to the top of waterfalls; magical days when most people believed fountains were powered by the mains water supply.

But some of us knew better.

Otter pumps, made in Britain, had been with us for decades and had built up a reputation for good value for money and reliability. They seemed to be the only submersible pumps specifically designed for small domestic water gardens.

10 CONSIDERATIONS THAT AFFECT YOUR CHOICE OF PUMP

It will help your Aquatic retailer if you can be sure of what you want you water garden pump to do. Assuming you will want a submersible pump because they are the most efficient and cost effective for the price, here are a number of factors you and he will have to consider.

1.The cost arises before the pump is in place. Do you have power out to the pool or water feature. Doing the job properly with armoured cable and waterproof junction boxes can easily outstrip the mere cost of the pump. Also do you have RCD trip switches installed to isolate the pump from the domestic mains.

2. The above question leads onto safety, even though all electrical connections must be up to professional standards, many people with young children are still frightened of putting a machine running of 240volts into water a child might put its hands into. There is a huge range of low voltage pumps that can produce quite adequate performance for most domestic water gardens for very little extra cost and in total safety. You just need to find somewhere to put the transformer.

3. What do want the pump to do? Will you want it to run a fountain, waterfall and a biological filter? A biological filter needs to be fed the total volume of the pool every two hours. So you must know the volume of your pool. A rough guide is adequate:
(LENGTH x WIDTH x DEPTH) in metres x 1000 = Volume of the pool in Litres
The pump should be capable if pumping half that figure to an appropriate filter. If the pump is to run a fountain as well then you need possibly 1000 litres an hour extra for that. Gushing frothy fountains may need a lot more. Waterfalls need at least 10 litres per hour for each centimetre width to the required head of the waterfall. This translates to 60 gallons per hour per inch.

4.For filter pumps. Is it capable of handling solids? A fine sponge pre-filter may help protect delicate bearings but it doesn’t allow much muck to get through with an all too regular wash out.

5.For filter pumps in particular, is it ‘continuously rated’? Does the guarantee cover it for running non-stop.

6. Fountain pumps with fine rose jets need a good pre-filter on the pump otherwise you are forever cleaning them out.

7. For waterfall pumps and filter pumps, looking on the performance table, is the volume of water you require to the height that your filter and waterfall header pool sits well within the 40% -80% of it maximum rated flow.

8. The costs of the pump can be easily outstripped by the costs of running it. A good motor that is capable of shifting 1000 litres and hour can be as little 15Watts.

9. Has it got all the fittings you need in the box? If you need extra fittings they can be quite expensive.

10. Is it easy to take apart and put back together again for ease of maintenance on a cold autumnal morning?

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