Why is our fountain so noisy?

Question

We purchased a fountain that looks very similar to this one, EXCEPT it has two bowls above the large retangular shaped basin below (three water bowls in all), AND the water flows from a sort of faucet (about 1 inch in diameter). Our fountain looks like this one proportionately, but ours is considerably larger, about 5 ft tall and 40 inches wide. The base bowl is about 18 inches deep.

http://www.garden-fountains.com/Detail.bok?no=66

The instructions call for a minimum 170 GPH pump, but the only one we could find at the time was 240 GPH.

Now we have installed the fountain and it looks lovely, but the water flowing into the bowls is anything but relaxing. It reminds me of the sound of a bathtub filling, or a garden faucet left on full force.

We want to try to mitigate the sound by adding some small cobbles to the bowls, but preliminary trials with a few cobbles don't show much change. I feel like the problem is that the water is just flowing WAY too fast, or way too strong. Is it possible that a 240 GPH pump is too much for a fountain that recommends no less than 170 GPH? Is it feasible that 70 GPH would make that much difference? Could the wide diameter flow tube (faucet) cause this?

I wanted a slow-flowing fountain with a delicate sound. This fountain did not sound this loud at the store display, but there were many working at the same time in a large outdoor patio garden section, so perhaps I didn't realize it's sound level.

Any experienced ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

if your fountain doesn't have a regulator to slow the flow, try this....rig up something to squeeze the tubing from the pump to the 'faucet' to slow down the water some.... if that improves the sound, then you'll either need to make that permanent or get a new pump, a smaller gph one..... note that impedement of the flow can cause the pump to burn out sooner.... but it's a way to test to see if it's actually going to make a difference to you if it's less flow and less 'noisy' to your ears....

if you're not happy with it, can you not return it and get another?....

Answer 2

It's a fact that a lot of these small fountains with built in pumps are rather noisy.  It would be worth going back to where you bought it and having another listen.  If you find that your fountain is much noisier than the one in the store then it would be fair to ask for a replacement.