Outdoor water fountains

Our landscape needs a special focal point. What does Exterior Worlds suggest?

Outdoor water fountains make a stylish statement about your home by creating a refined ambiance. Typically, each fountain is different and therefore an original. It is like building a working piece of art into your landscape. You can use them to enhance the architectural style of your house. They can be designed to be played in, thus providing welcome relief during Houston’s infamous summer season. In these technological times, fountains are quite functional, serving as camouflage for annoying traffic and loud air-conditioning units.

While there are many ways to design and build a fountain, during the typical design process, the scope of the work is defined and a budget developed. Cost factors include material choices, ongoing maintenance contracts, and integration with hardscapes such as custom patios, seat walls, retaining walls, steps etc..

We advise our clients that building a custom outdoor water fountain appears to be like building a swimming pool, but is actually more difficult. It takes practical know-how and experience to avoid common mistakes when designing or constructing one. We work with our clients to provide as much information as possible to insure that their fountain is the success they deserve.

What are some of the designs outdoor water fountains come in?

You can find them in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles, such as Roman, Moorish or Asian-influenced. Additional features can be added, such as a waterfall or a contemporary wall fountain. Whatever style you prefer, be sure to pick a fountain that fits your home and garden landscape.

Designing your own fountains may be more expensive than choosing a prefabricated ones, but our clients have enjoyed these long-term benefits:

• A common problem of ready-mades is “over-spray” or water coming out of the fountain. This malfunction creates subsequent problems, such as the area near the fountain becoming slippery or moldy, the fountain running out of water, and discoloration of the adjacent materials due to chlorination.

A custom-built fountain addresses these problems during the design process.

• Custom-built fountains can be constructed with special features, almost none of which are available on prefabricated fountains. Enhancements include overflow release valves to drain excess water, auto-fill lines to maintain the water level, skimmers, filters, lights, auto-chlorinators and backwash lines (for easy cleaning).

• Custom-built fountains can be built much bigger than prefabricated ones, which is important when working with the scale of some homes and buildings.

What can Exterior Worlds tell us about the materials they are made of?

Many outdoor water fountains are constructed with tile, marble, rock, natural stone, and polished. Other popular choices include stone masonry products such as sandstone, limestone, brick, and concrete blocks. The basins that act as a reservoir are typically made with gunite and rebar, and then plastered—as found with a swimming pool. These interior surfaces are sometimes re-surfaced with stone, pebbles or mosaics. Your process of selection should begin with materials that work in the Houston area. These materials need to handle our climate’s extreme sunlight, rain and other natural elements.