I am making a water feature for my church and have a question about plumbing for the water fall. The pump provides 10,500 GPH and has a 2-3/4"id output, I was thinking about using PVC schedule 40 pipe, can I reduce to a smaller pipe size by using a Y connector without causing problems for the pump and if so how small would I be able to go to, I was hoping to go down to 1-1/2"id on both outlets?? Also would there be a problem with adding a 3/4"id pipe off of the same line to feed a smaller feature. I know very little about plumbing obviously so appreciate any help I can get and any other suggestions are welcomed.

You should contact the pump manufacturer. They can better tell you about what their pumps can and cannot do, and how best to do it.

contact pump mfg but alot is determined by outlet seize which should work fine as you describe You are not lifting the water more than a few feet ?

for most pumps, you would be better off increasing the pipe size if your are only going a few feet and want a waterfall and not a fountain.

Reducing the outlet pipe is the same as installing a valve in the line and has no effect on the pump. basically, you can do just about what you want to with it. Reducing the inlet pipe or putting a valve on it, however, WOULD damage the pump.

Too many unknowns....It sounds like you're going to run an open system. The water will follow the path of least resistance, so if you wanted to split the flow, and be sure of a certain flow to each area, you'd need balancing valves.How that would affect the head and gpm is not known to us. I would say forget about teeing off a 3/4 line, for that reason as well. You might consider a smaller pump drawing from the holding area for that.
You also want to contact the pump manufacturer about using pcv on that pump. That volume of water at about 12 ft/sec may be n.g. in pvc. The more impurities the system picks up will scour the inside of the pipe away.



Edited 1 times.

Thanks for the help,basically I am moving water from a lower basin to an upper pool about 3ft higher where the pipes will be open in multiple places to fill the upper basin and create a water fall. I was hoping to split the flow so that it would be easier to hide the pipes but if it will cause a problem I will stay with the larger pipe. I was thinking of adding a check valve and ball valve to prevent back flow and adjust flow if I need too. I was also thinking about adding another valve that will allow me to divert some of the flow to lower basin if I need to slow the flow to the upper pool. What do you think?



Edited 1 times.

Thank you for the help, the water is moving about 5 ft across and 3 ft up and I was hoping to hide the pipes more easily, it would be pretty hard to hide a 3" diameter pipe. I will contact the manufacturer to see what they say.

thank you for the help



Edited 1 times.

Thank you for the help

Thank you for your help



Edited 1 times.

Moving 180 gpm ,give or take,into a holding area is certainly not going to be gentle.Does it just appear in a pool, or does it come like rapids from under a rock out-cropping?

"For waterfalls and streams, your pump should pump at least 100 gallons per hour for every inch wide the waterfall is. For more noise and "white-water" from your falls, increase the flow rate to 200 gallons per hour per inch of waterfall width."
Found that online while wondering whether the pump was oversized. I think that I would increase the pipe size as you entered the pool to 4" pipe and have it T in 2 directions. 63 half inch holes would be equal to the 4" pipe diameter and would diffuse the water as it entered and keep the look of boiling water down. or get creative and pipe it into an area drain covered in screen wire and large gravel so nobody could see it.

On the oUTLET of the pump you can do almost anything you want to. Reducing the pipe size, depending on WHERE you do it on the run can increase the residual pressure at the "nozzle" and create a "jet" of water, which may not be what you want to do.