eklawun
Full Member
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:24 pm
Location: Bartlesville, OK, Zone 6a

New cement fountain leaking and pump cord question

We just bought a fountain over the weekend - the first one that the whole family could agree on... :D Since it was the first and only one that everybody liked, we decided to splurge and get it despite the expense. It is apparently from Bali and is in two parts, a 2.5 ft diameter bowl-shaped base and the vase that sits on a raised part in the bowl is a little over 2.5 ft high. The concrete is about 2.5 inches thick. It looks like it may have been sealed with a gray-colored sealer when it was made.
It was quite a project to get it out of the van and into the backyard, but we managed (with the help of a handy dandy dump cart just recently purchased!!) without dropping it. It was then also a bit of an ordeal to get the vase onto/into the bowl, but with the clever use of several 4x4s we levered it up and in - once again without dropping it.
Set up the pump, filled it with water and were treated to the lovely music of the water. The vase is covered with river rock, embedded so that the edges face outward, creating a lot of surface irregularity for the water to dance over.
Imagine our dismay :shock: the next morning when the base was within an inch of being empty and there was a puddle around it...
No really visible crack, but a clear rivulet trails seeping all the way around about two inches from the ground.
So now we are looking at sealing the base (and the vase while we are at it). Anyone have any experience with this? I am looking at either something called Thompson's water sealer, Drylok masonry waterproofer, or something that I can't remember the name of, but it's in a spraypaint can and is a black rubber sealer, I think.
We would take it back and exchange it, but the store doesn't have another one, and I frankly don't think we could get it back up into the van anyway... Any thoughts?
And as for the pump, it has a big black cord that snakes over the edge of the bowl and then has to get to an outlet. We were going to have put the whole thing over in a flowerbed that was close to the house wall, but it looked goofy there and as far as balance is concerned, it has ended up in the middle of the yard. Do we just run the cable around the outside edge of the patio and then along the wall of the house to get to the outlet? That'll have to be one looooong cable if we do... What do people with fountains usually do?
Thanks for any ideas!!



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