How is made a fountain?

Enriching the garden or the terrace with a fountain is an idea or a desire that sooner or later reaches everyone: once the choice of essences and furnishings is completed, it’s time to begin to experience the garden enjoying the peace it instills, until you get to the point of wanting to finish everything off with water games. At this point, instinct leads to a search on the internet, pouring attention to blog articles such as “how do you make a garden fountain?”, where you soon realize that the solutions offered are among the most various (sometimes even the most bizarre), with basically very low budgets, for home-made creations with concrete or plastic pots, watering cans, pebbles, rocks and so on. So the way divides into two distinct paths and you have to understand if you want to take advantage of this desire to have a fountain by transforming it into a pleasant pastime, where you put your manual skills into play to make it as best you can, otherwise, if you wants a complete and professional product, you have to rely on a specialized company.

The creation of a fountain is a complex process, so much so that it is not enough to insert or contextualize the delivery pipe of the nozzle to obtain a technically appreciable product; numerous pipes are required for the passage of water, lights and sensors, in order to obtain a realization that is beautiful to look at and which retains its full functionality over time.

First of all, for a fountain with a constant clean water, which does not leave limestone residues and lasts over time (both from an aesthetic and functional point of view), it is necessary to design a high-performance filtration and recirculation system adequate for the quantity of water and the context in which it is inserted, which could require a greater or lesser commitment depending on the case. To do this, you must choose professional pumps and filters, housed in a dedicated, ventilated, inspectable and above ground compartment in order to facilitate maintenance, avoiding being subjected to regulations on confined spaces. Another determining factor is safety, therefore great attention must be paid to where and how the various electrical elements are positioned, to the choice of components that are IP68 and to the use of low voltage pumps.

The use of selected and quality materials also contributes to the success of a fountain, first of all Aisi 316 and 316L steel for the nozzles, LED spots and structural parts, the use of which guarantees effective durability environments affected by treated water. Imagine replacing 316 steel with 304 to contain construction costs: how long could it resist corrosion? Definitely, much less than you can imagine!
Aisi 316 or 316L steel creates the “skeleton” of the fountain, an essential element for its robustness and longevity, but not all blacksmiths have the necessary skills to create fountain products. Franzato Gianni srl, a company that boasts over forty years of experience in the craftsmanship of steel products, is our strategic partner and reference point for all our metal structures. It ctively collaborates in Forme d’Acqua projects through an exchange of notions, information and skills, which lead to the creation of tailor-made parts made on MEP design that offer the best solutions for aesthetically beautiful works, but above all easy to install and maintain.

After the MEP design, we finally arrive at the aesthetics of the fountain: it is usually the starting point of a project, but in this case we have travelled backwards, starting from the core to reach the surface. Here the challenge lies in enhancing it by combining the customer’s ideas with the potential of the surrounding environment: also in this case, internet gives a lot of ideas, captivating photos and Pharaonic projects, which sometimes clash with real feasibility due of a multiplicity of elements, such as the dissonance of styles between the environment and the water feature, or for prices that go too far beyond the set budget, due to the use of particularly precious materials and/or particularly avant-garde technologies out of the market. Here the design comes into play, which draw the project following a careful analysis of the context and the client’s wishes, without neglecting the available budget. The real difference given by the design is to be able to propose an aesthetically beautiful and durable fountain, which embellishes the surrounding context and is identifying the personality of the client: this is possible thanks to the originality and personalization of the project, which becomes the mirror of the wishes of those who will go to live it day by day.

These described are the main elements that contribute to the creation of a fountain, but they are certainly not all, because each creation is a world in itself, which involves a tailor-made design. Precisely for this reason, before trying your hand at creating a fountain you have to ask yourself: how much am I willing to put into play to see my dream come true? And it starts with the answer that you will give: if it is a small whim, we advise you to give free rein to your manual skills and to venture into the creation of a small do-it-yourself water game: there are many products on the market and at quite prices, you can also refer to numerous DIY blog articles that will give you lots of ideas. If, on the other hand, what you have in mind is a fountain with a capital “F”, then you just have to write down your ideas and share them with us.