Pump Power Costs

First of all, I don't know what kind of pump I really need. I am not trying to design anything special. I am not home enough (school, work) to devote all this time to the pond we have in our backyard, I am hoping just to put in a fountain just to move the surface water around and make the pond at least a little more sightly. Knowing that, do I really need a pump with a high GPH rating? I have most just been looking at Max. Head values so I know how far across the top of the water the fountain will spray. Is that ok? Or am I making some sort of incorrect assumption about water pumping in ponds. I really don't know what I am doing.

My second question is in the title of the thread: how much is it going to cost to run the pump in the spring/summer/fall? I saw one site say that a 28 Watt pump will only require $25/year running all 12 months. That seems extremely low, and I just don't see how that's possible. Can anyone shed some light on any of these things for me?

JackNight

Do the math... 365*24=8760 hrs in a year.
28 watts = .028KwH
@$.10 per KwH that would cost you $24.53 a year
So the missing information that only you can provide is your cost per KwH.
I used $.10 to get close to your estimate of $25.

If you are having fish in this, you need to run 24/7. If it is just for show, then running whenever you want to look at it is fine but a daily running schedule is required to keep the water quality.

As for head, that is the ability to move water up vetically, that does not tell you how high your fountain will spray. That depends on the nozzle.

Does this help?

BTW the KwH cost is on your electrical bill.

That helps a lot. Thanks for all the information. That's much cheaper than I originally realized, especially since I won't be running the pump all year or all day.

So my next question is, where do I find good fountain heads? The ones I am finding seem to have very low lifts (2 or 3 feet). I figure if the head from the pump will be about 6-8 feet (9.8 max head), what kind of fountain height am I looking at? I'm looking for something that has a good height/width ratio on the spray.

I am looking for a site where I can attach a fountain head to either 3/4" or 4/3" outlets.

There are many web sites, I Goggled this one Using "fountain heads":
http://www.islandnet.com/~pondusa/heads.htm

Ok. Is there anything else I need? I've got a pump and fountain head that match up. There's nothing anything else I really need to get this running is there?

You have provided nearly nothing to provide you additional advice. We still don't know the size, whether you are having fish, plants, chlorine and your objective.
Pictures of what you have???

Sorry. This isn't the kind of pond I'm building or trying to maintain with fish and plants etc. I'm just trying to make it a little bit more presentable with a fountain, because as of right now it sits too still and isn't very attractive. I think a fountain would at least help, even one that isn't too large (trying to save money on power). It's large and not man made (as far as I know. it was here when we moved in 12 years ago).

You might want to get a chlorine test kit and some chemicals from a pool supply. A filter to keep the fountain head from clogging. Otherwise the small orofices will get jammed up with debries in the pond.

There is a good possibility the water will start spraying out of the pond, if the fountain head gets clogged.

I don't have any pumps within my pond, that way if I spring a leak, I can only lose 2 feet, out of the 5 foot depth. I drained my small pond more then once due to a foutain head getting clogged.