Pumps for waterfalls

By splitting the waterfall into ribbons you can get a more impressive width of flow from a smaller pump and it can look more natural.

When it comes to estimating what you want in terms of gallons or litres required for a waterfall you must take first of all the height of the waterfall at the outlet of the hose. Normally this will pour straight into a header pool that will even out the flow of the water from the hose. Most manufactures will give performance diagrams or tables on the sides of their boxes or in their catalogues and these are often designed so that you find it difficult to relate these figures to any competing manufacturers pumps, but are easy to compare with pumps within that manufacturers range.

However if you can find the delivery to the height that you require, regard each 60 to 100 gallons per hour providing an inch of waterfall width depending on the force and depth you want over the sill; in litres per hour that works out at between 273 and 455; litres per minute, between 4.5 and 7.6 litres. So a pump providing 1500 gallons to a header pool should have no problems in covering an outlet sill of 18inches. I work that out as being roughly between 120 and 200 litres per hour for every centimetre width of flow.