Summer projects

By Richard Jacks | Meteorologist
Published: June 8, 2009

I have a couple of projects on-going this summer. The first one I have tackled is to create a fountain out of a large urn I found last year while visiting the coast. Here is how I put it together:

First thing I did was to select a place for the urn to stand and created an outline by digging it around it with a shovel.

Then I moved the urn out of the way and dug the whole about 12 inches deep- deep enough for a nice amount of water to collect around the base. Evaporation during the summer months can be very high, so the deeper it is, the less re-filling you will have to do. After the hole is dug, the liner goes in. I made sure the liner was plenty big enough to cover the basin and it’s sidewalls.

After placing the liner, I trimmed it. I purchased an irrigation box from the local home improvement store. This has a small hole in the bottom to allow water in but yet keeping the gravel and stones from clogging up the pump.

I used hydraulic cement to secure a pvc pipe frunning up through the urn. The pvc is connected to a hose that fits right on the pump. I elevated the urn using a couple of bricks and then filled the basin with gravel, river/decorative rocks and filled with water. I mixed more of the concrete and poured it into the urn-helping to seal the bottom so water will flow over the top.

I used hydraulic cement to secure a pvc pipe frunning up through the urn. The pvc is connected to a hose that fits right on the pump. I elevated the urn using a couple of bricks and then filled the basin with gravel, river/decorative rocks and filled with water. This is one of the easiest water feature to build. Make sure your pump is located near a grounded GFI (ground-fault interrupt circuit) outlet.