How to Build a Waterfall

Building a backyard waterfall is a quite delicate process. California Waterscapes, as Southern California's leading water feature installers, know exactly what to consider when creating the perfect backyard waterfall for your pond.

Rock waterfalls can add a very nice touch to a pond or backyard, or they can totally overwhelm a small area. More often than not, people tend to build backyard waterfalls too big, too tall and with too much water. That is why the design phase is so important, you must know what effect you want to create.

Is my outdoor waterfall going to be in a small enclosed space, or do I want it to be part of a grand entrance?
Do I want to hear the sound of the water from a particular part of my house?
Do I want a standard, full-sized pond with koi fish to accompany my garden waterfall? Or would I prefer a pondless waterfall?

Flow of Water in a Waterfall

To help you further with the design you can follow these basis rules.

All waterfalls should have a minimum of 100 gallons per hour of water flow over each inch of width of your waterfall. If your fall has a width of 20 inches you should have a flow of 2000 gallons per hour for it to look good.

Sound of Waterfalls

When building a backyard waterfall for your pond, the sound is a combination of three basic factors:

1. The volume of water
2. What the water is falling onto, and
3. The distance the water falls

As that volume increases, say to 200 gallons per inch, the sound of course will increase. If the volume is cut to 50 gallons, again, the sound will decrease.

Pond Waterfall Design

There are several types of sounds created by what the water is falling onto. The most pronounced is water falling directly into a pool of water. Next is a shallow pool, followed by water falling onto a rock or boulder and then water sliding over rocks or boulders.

The distance the water falls is a very key factor. A 3 inch to a 4 inch drop can be quite subtle, but as it’s increased to 18 to 20 inches, the sound increases significantly. Of all the factors when building a waterfall, this is the most distinct.

You can experiment with a garden hose running into a bucket or a pool and note the difference.

Determine the Size of Pool or Basin

The next thing to determine when building waterfalls for ponds is the basin or the pool the water will go into.

The size of the pond in square feet of surface area needs to be 1 1/2 times the square footage of your waterfall and stream.

If your waterfall and stream is 20 feet long and 3 feet wide, then the pond should be 90 sq. feet. This is to allow the pond to capture all the water from the stream and waterfall when the waterfall is turned off, without the water overflowing the pond.

Building a Waterfall without a Pond

If there is not room to accommodate the size of the pond, then a different technology can be used called a Pondless Waterfall. To learn more about this technology, check out our article on Pondless Waterfalls.

Be sure and visit our Waterfall Gallery if you are interested in seeing more waterfall pictures featuring beautiful, original waterfall designs.

Visit our page dedicated to Backyard Waterfalls to find to find out more about our expertise in garden waterfall design.