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The design of the site is rarely complete without the device of the reservoir. The water is soothing and cool on a hot day. It’s also good that you can make a waterfall with your own hands, without involving specialists. It is important to have a pump and a place where you can turn it on. Everything else can be done by yourself.
Bowl
Building even a small waterfall with your own hands, you will have to transfer a lot of land: it all starts with land work. It is necessary to dig a pit for a bowl in which water will be collected. Then the container must be sealed. There are two simple methods:
- Use film. If you are planning a long-term operation, you need a special film for pools and ponds (called a butyl rubber membrane). It costs a lot (for 1 sq. meter from $ 10), but normally tolerates ultraviolet and frost, it will serve for years. For a temporary, trial waterfall, a film that is used for greenhouses is suitable. Just note that it should be all-weather with a service life of several years, and not several seasons. This option is cheaper, but also much worse in terms of performance.
- Install the plastic insert. They are also positioned as bowls for ponds and pools. They are relatively inexpensive – a capacity of 120-140 liters costs 1200-1500 rubles.
Use a plastic container as a bowl
When using a ready-made bowl, you are limited in the choice of shape and depth: only those that are available. In the economy version – for a waterfall in the country – you can use any capacity available on the farm: an old bath or bath. You can even adapt a barrel sawn in half, etc.
Using the film, the shape, as well as the depth, you choose arbitrarily. But when working with the film, you need to be careful: although it is dense, it can be torn.
How to make a waterfall out of film: photo report
First, mark on the ground the desired shape of the bowl of your waterfall. The shape depends on the style of your site. Strict geometric proportions are characteristic of Art Nouveau, may be in Art Deco. In the rest, they try to give more natural, non-linear outlines. Most often, a reservoir in the form of a bean is obtained.
The easiest way to make markings is with sand. It is poured into a bag, a corner is cut off. Waking up sand outlines the contours. This makes it easier to evaluate how correct the form you have chosen. If necessary, it can be corrected immediately.
Sod is removed along the contour, and then a foundation pit is dug. Immediately, in the process of work, you form ledges. The optimal depth of the reservoir is about a meter. How many sites you will make at the same time, and what shape they will be – depends only on your desire.
In the excavated pit, immediately remove all objects that can tear the film: pebbles, pieces of roots, etc. The bottom, ledges, are leveled. The leveled soil is compacted. Use a rammer for this. In the simplest version, this is a piece of a tree trunk with a nailed plank. The deck is raised by the bar, then it is sharply lowered down. This is how the soil is compacted. Then a layer of sand is poured – 5-10 cm. It is leveled with a rake, spilled. Sand take medium-grained. It seals well with water. Otherwise, you will have to ram the sand.
You can immediately form a slide, if it is provided for in your waterfall. For example, such as in the photo below.
Next, a film is spread into the pit. Under it, it is desirable to spread geotextiles (the cheapest is 600-700 rubles a roll). This non-woven fabric will prevent root growth and also redistribute the load more evenly. It is also laid on the edges of the pit, the sides and bottom are covered. Above already – a film.
As already mentioned, it is better to use a butyl rubber membrane. It can be ordered in any format and your fountain will turn out without seams. The dimensions of the film are calculated simply: the largest width + doubled depth + 60-80 cm for a margin at the edges. If your waterfall is 2 * 3 m in size (at the most extreme points) and 1,2 m deep, then the film will be needed:
- 2 m wide + 2 * 1,2 m + 80 cm = 5,2 m
- 3 m long + 2 * 1,2 m = 0,8 m = 6,2 m
Spread it first at the bottom, straighten it, forming folds. After leveling, press down with stones around the perimeter. Then you can move on to leveling on the ledges.
It is better to completely lay the ledges with stones. The bottom is also desirable, but pebbles and small boulders can be used. And the ledges are best decorated with layered stones. Although they are in the water, they are clearly visible. We are making a waterfall, although artificial, but we want it to look harmonious.
Folding boulders one on one, they can and should be fastened with mortar. You can use both large and medium or small stones. It all depends on the configuration and height of the steps. As a result, the slopes will be uneven, and also with ledges. It looks much better than see through film. Such a homemade waterfall brings satisfaction to the owners.
The whole procedure for building a bowl, all technological and nuances completely coincide with the construction of a pond. Read about how and from what it can be made here.
How to install a plastic bowl
When building a waterfall with your own hands using a finished container, for starters, turning it upside down, outline the contours. They are digging a pit.
It should be slightly larger than the bowl. When working, they are guided by the existing form, measuring ledges and forming similar contours. Figured protrusions are desirable to be repeated with sufficiently high accuracy: so that they find a normal support.
The ledges and the bottom are leveled, rammed, a layer of sand is poured in 5-10 cm, its layer is leveled, but it is not spilled or rammed: under the weight of the bowl, it will compact itself. Having installed the bowl, we notice that there is a gap between its wall and the wall of the pit. We also fill it with sand. But here, it is desirable to compact it. We’ll have to do it with a pole or something like that. If the soil drains water well, you can spill the poured sand.
If the container is plastic, with thin walls, and the volume is large, it is better to fill the gap with sand by filling it with water. So you will not be able to deform the walls by ramming the sand too hard.
After that, only the decoration of the side and the arrangement of the slide remain, from which the water will, in fact, fall.
Read about the construction of fountains here.
How to make a slide for a waterfall
If you plan to decorate the edges of the waterfall with stones, and you want a high and large hill, along which water flows, you need a solid foundation – a reinforced platform. Without it, the stones will slide into the bowl. Next to the foundation pit for the bowl, the area under the hill is being cleared and reinforced.
Make a standard monolithic slab. First, they dig a pit. Its dimensions should exceed the slide by 40-50 cm in all directions. The pit is dug with a depth of 20-25 cm. Then the following work order:
- Gravel is covered with a layer 10-15 cm thick, it is well rammed.
- Lay reinforcement with a diameter of 12-15 mm. It is laid along and across in increments of 20 cm, at the intersections it is pulled together with plastic clamps.
- Filled with concrete.
Under such a waterfall near the house, a reinforced base is needed
After the concrete has set (after a couple of weeks), you can start laying out the slide. This procedure is necessary if the height of the slide above ground level is about a meter.
If the waterfall is planned to be small, you can simply remove the soil and pour crushed stone (geotextiles can be laid under it so that the crushed stone does not wash out into the ground). Crushed stone is well compacted, pour a little sand on top, lay out a metal mesh of thick wire. Lay boulders on it, decorate with smaller stones, pebbles, sand, plant plants. It will turn out a kind of flower slide with a waterfall.
There is a second option – to make a cascade-type waterfall using the height difference on the site. Even a small, a few degrees, slope will greatly facilitate the task: steps are formed on the slope, laying stones in the form of slabs. If there is no slope, you will have to pour an earthen hill, carefully compacting each layer, not forgetting to form ledges. Polymer mesh can be used to reinforce slopes. It is spread out, covered with earth. It will keep the soil from slipping.
A film is spread on the formed ledges, which is pressed against the channel by stones. They need to be laid out so that the water from this stone falls into another, and not onto the film. And then – the matter of registration
When forming a slide for a waterfall, it is advisable to fasten the stones together, at least large, central, with a cement-sand mortar (for 1 part of Portland cement, 3 parts of sand and 0,5-0,7 of water).
Planning and arrangement of the site is described in this article.
Installing the pump
The pump for the waterfall in the country or in the area near the house is selected according to two parameters: the height to which it can raise water, and its performance.
With height, everything is more or less clear: it should be no less than the height difference in your homemade waterfall. The difference is measured from the bottom of the tank (the pump will stand there) and to the point where it should raise it. In small domestic ponds, it rarely exceeds 1,5-2 meters. But still, keep track of this indicator.
The performance of the pump shows how much water it can pump per minute. The power of the stream depends on this indicator.
Submersible pumps are used in such reservoirs. They are placed on the bottom, installed in a basket with stones, or simply crushing the body with several boulders. He takes water from the tank, feeding it into a hose that is attached to the outlet pipe. This hose and lay to the place where the water will run.
To be able to pull out the hose, a plastic pipe of a decent diameter is built into the slide. So that you can easily lower the rubber sleeve into it.
It is better to put the pump in the basket. It works well with clean water, and your waterfall may contain leaves, all sorts of midges, dust and other contaminants inevitably get there. And the basket, or rather, the box, can be covered with several layers of filters of different densities. First – a fine mesh, and then something more dense, at least the same geotextile. This filter will trap major contaminants.
After installing this equipment, filling it with water and starting it up, you can consider the waterfall to be built with your own hands. There remains such a “trifle” as the design of the coast.
How to make a flat stream
If you want it not to be a jet, but a wide stream of water, you will have to install another container at the top of the hill, but already rectangular. One of its edges should be lower than the other.
There are such special containers, but you can make them from any one by cutting off the edge and making a flat tray from which water will flow like a wall.
dry waterfall
You have probably already seen the mysterious waterfalls without a bowl into which it falls. Flowing down the ledges, she disappears somewhere. This is not a waterfall pond. No reservoir is visible.
Of course, there is a container for collecting water. She’s just in disguise. It turns out a kind of “dry” waterfall. To make it, perhaps, is no more difficult than the usual one.
The container is also dug in: into the pit. Only from above it is covered with a metal mesh with a small cell (preferably stainless steel). If the dimensions of the container are large, you can put reinforcement bars or wooden blocks on the sides as a base (do not forget to soak so as not to rot).
A smaller one is spread on a metal mesh, a polymer one is also suitable. It will detain more or less large pollution. Small stones are laid on top, decorating this device. So it turns out that the water falls under the ground …
decorative waterfalls
There is not always a place for such a massive structure, spanning several meters. A small waterfall can be placed near the bench, gazebo, in your favorite corner of the garden. Such decorative devices require very low-power pumps, such as aquarium ones.
Any suitable container can be used as the housing. Up to ceramic and even plastic pots. They are stacked one on top of the other. The lower one must be sealed, but the upper one depends on the design.
In the variant in the photo above, a small pump is placed in the lower, largest vessel. It is covered with a plastic cover. The diameter is chosen so that the plastic becomes 3-5 cm below the edge and can be closed with small pebbles. Numerous holes are made in this cover (with a drill). They also make a hole in the middle for the tube that will come from the pump.
Make a similar hole in the center of the other two containers. They are assembled like a children’s pyramid, and the tube that comes from the pump serves as its center. So that the design does not turn out to be very heavy, a plastic liner is inserted into each of the pots. it is covered with small pebbles. Pour water into the resulting pyramid, turn on the pump. A small soda fountain is ready.
Moreover, this technology can be used to make small home waterfalls. For example, this one will look great on the balcony.
By the same principle, you can make waterfalls in a different way. The principle is the same. In the largest tank we mask the pump. We feed the tube or hose up.
Home floor waterfall on glass
Water flowing down the glass looks great in the interior. In modern apartments, the problem of dry air is relevant. And such a device is a great way to increase humidity without using humidifiers. It is not difficult to make such a waterfall with your own hands. The design is simple and looks great. You need a sealed tray. You can find some plastic container. Make a frame in size, inside which, on one side, pass the tube from the pump. In the upper part, the tube is attached to the frame, numerous holes are made in it.
Soak wooden elements with tinted wood oil. It perfectly protects from moisture and gives a great look.
It is possible to make such an installation hermetic. The work is a little more difficult, but also doable. It is necessary to make the frame wider, with the possibility of fixing the second glass. First, one glass panel is mounted, hoses are laid, and after a test run, a second glass can be installed. Tightness is achieved with a sealant. Just take neutral silicone (acrylic quickly turns yellow).
Do-it-yourself waterfall: photo design ideas
