Fire Hydrant water fountain ideas?

[snatiep]

Hello Everyone!

My good friend works for the city water department and saved me an old fire hydrant from the scrap bin to make a garden water fountain out of.

Do any of you have any experience or ideas how to turn this hydrant into a water fountain that would slowly spill water out of one of the nozzles?

The fire hydrant itself is completely open from the bottom to the three nozzles on top.

I'll need some type of catch basin to bury in the ground and recirculating pump to pump the water. The fire hydrant can sit on a stand in the water basin, but I'm unsure of how to plumb the recirculating pump?

Here's a link to what I'd like to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwVdcJJFsBY

Any thoughts or comments will be greatly appreciated on how to make this. I think it would be a neat little project for the corner of the backyard.

 

[oldbluelight]

Well, that looks like an interesting project. I'm guessing that you'll need to find a way to seal the bottom of the hydrant. I think most of them are designed to bolt to a flange on the supply pipe so attaching a plate with a fitting for a smaller diameter supply shouldn't be too hard. You'll need to calculate the flow required to produce the amount of spill that you want and find a pump capable of delivering that volume and an adequate supply pipe. After all, the flow from your example appears to be somewhat more than that from the average kitchen faucet. Because you'll have the catch basin outside you'll need to plan for some way to keep debris out of the system. If you're not in the tropics you'll need a way to drain the system for winterization. You'll need to keep the pump protected from the elements.

 

[DC_MPA]

Gut the hydrant, plumb your fountain tubing up and to the exit point you want. Use a 500 gph or higher pump, 3/4 inch or 1 inch tubing. Everything will be hidden and submerged. Easy project. I put in a gas pump fountain, two tiered waterfalls, and a center spritzer in my backyard surrounded by plants and flowers, anchored by a 150 gallon pond. Fun project!

 

[Commander Quan]

Somehow you need to incorporate this into the feature.

 

[luvmysuper]

I did a quick check and there is a TON of information out there about DIY water features. A google image search of "fire hydrant water feature" turned up hundreds of ideas.
A basic fountain DIY is all you really need, then just use the hydrant as the feature.

This guy built one using a steel tank under the hydrant, but I imagine half a 55 gallon drum would work just as well. He says he used a sump pump from Lowes for the pump, so it delivers quite a bit of water, and there's a float so the pump doesn't burn out if the water level drops.

If I was going to do this, I'd put in a sidewalk, and mount the hydrant next to it with the discharge pouring out and into a storm drain type grating off of the sidewalk, which covers the sump for the water feature.

 

[eightysixCJ]

How about a sprinkler cap, like what we put on for kids to cool off in the street. Small holes in a cover like a big shower head. Might look cooler than the open hydrant and you can rig it with a water source so you can turn it up and use it for a real sprinkler to cool off.



Tom