Tips for Winterizing Your Outdoor Water Fountain

When you have an outdoor water fountain, you will find that you want to take exceptionally good care of it in order to keep it working perfectly for years to come.  While adding proper water treatments and cleaning your fountain regularly are the biggest steps in doing this, people who live in areas where temperatures drop below freezing in the winter will find that they need to do a little bit more.  Winterizing your outdoor fountain isn’t exceptionally difficult, but it will require a few extra steps in order to help ensure that it is not damaged.

Your fountain is designed to be resilient and durable, but running a motor in water when the water in the fountain is going to freeze is simply a recipe for disaster.  One of the most important tips for your fountain is to drain it before a freeze occurs.  Turn off the pump and bring it inside, removing all of the water from your fountain.  This is also an excellent time to thoroughly clean your pump so that algae and other bacteria are completely removed from the intricate workings of the device.  This can help to extend its life greatly.

If you have a small fountain, such as a garden fountain, you will find that it can be easily picked up and stored in a basement or garage to keep it away from the elements.  Repeated freezing and thawing is not good for some materials, and moving the fountain inside is a great way to help reduce exposure to rapid temperature changes.  If your outdoor fountain is a bit larger, you may wish to consider a fountain cover or even a simple tarp to cover the basin of the fountain.  This will help keep snow or water from entering the fountain, freezing, and cracking the material.

These are the most important tips to remember when seeking to winterize your garden fountain.  If you have plants or other decorations in your fountain, you will also want to remove them during the winter.  Again, this is an excellent time to clean all of your fountain materials so that they will be in great shape for use next spring.  Maintaining an outdoor fountain during the winter is surprisingly easy, but ensuring that you take these steps before the first freeze of the year is something that you will need to pay careful attention to in order to keep your fountain safe.