Pond FAQ

It depends on what you are building. A small garden pond starts around $5,000. The common Los Angeles back yard pond with a stream and a waterfall runs $12,000 to $35,000. A koi system with a bottom drain, settlement and filtration sized for large fish runs $25,000 to $50,000 and beyond. Natural swimming ponds start around $80,000 and estate work goes past $100,000. At the other end, a pondless waterfall starts near $6,000 and a courtyard fountain can be under $4,000 installed. The three things that move a price most are depth, access to the back yard and how much stone is in it.

On site, a self-contained fountain or a small pondless feature takes two days. A typical back yard pond with a stream is one to two weeks. Koi systems, swimming ponds and anything with structural walls or hillside grading run three to six weeks. In front of that, allow two to four weeks for design and permitting in the City of Los Angeles, longer if grading review is involved. After the water goes in, the biology needs another four to six weeks to settle, which is why we come back rather than handing over on fill day.

Usually. California treats water deeper than eighteen inches as a pool for safety purposes, so anything past that depth brings barrier requirements and a permit through LA Building and Safety. The pump circuit needs an electrical permit and a GFCI either way. On a slope, the hillside grading ordinance applies to the excavation. Shallow water gardens under eighteen inches, pondless waterfalls and disappearing fountains normally avoid the depth rules entirely, which is a genuine reason to consider them. We file whatever the job needs and hand over the signed card.

Somewhere you can see it from indoors, with four to six hours of sun rather than all-day sun, out from under the drip line of a large deciduous tree, and never at the low point where the yard already drains. Full sun in the Valley pushes algae and evaporation hard; deep shade limits what will grow. Keep clear of big roots, keep clear of a septic field on the properties that have one, and stay close enough to power for a proper circuit. We walk this before drawing anything, because moving a pond on a plan costs nothing.

Six, broadly. Planted water gardens built around lilies and marginals with a light fish load. Koi ponds built around the fish, with depth, drains and heavy filtration. Natural swimming ponds with a planted regeneration zone doing the filtering instead of chlorine. Pondless waterfalls and streams with the reservoir buried and no open water. Farm, duck and natural ponds on the larger parcels, with beach entries rather than coping. And retention and detention basins for commercial sites, HOAs and golf courses. Fountains and courtyard features sit alongside all of it.

Priorities. A water garden is built for plants: one to two feet deep, densely planted, lightly stocked, and filtered modestly because the planting does much of the work. A koi pond is built for fish: three to five feet deep, with a bottom drain, a settlement chamber, heavy biological filtration, high turnover, continuous aeration and sparse planting, since koi eat and uproot it. Water gardens cost less and forgive more. Koi ponds keep large fish healthy for decades. Most of the problems we get called about are koi living in a water garden.

A waterfall and stream that run into a gravel-covered reservoir instead of into open water, so there is nothing standing anywhere. The pump sits in the reservoir under a service hatch and recirculates continuously. You get the sound and the movement without owning a pond: no fish, no algae balance, no depth to trigger barrier requirements, very little water use, and maintenance that amounts to keeping leaves out and rinsing a pump screen. It is the build we recommend most often for families with young children and for small or steep gardens.

A swimming body of water kept clear by biology rather than chemistry. A deep, unplanted swim zone is paired with a shallow gravel bed planted with reeds and rushes, and water circulates slowly between them. Bacteria on the gravel and roots take up the nutrients algae would otherwise use. No chlorine, no salt, nothing to test or balance. The trade is footprint, because the planted zone runs a third to half the total water area, so swim ponds need a yard that can carry them. In Los Angeles they swim comfortably from late spring into October.

Yes, and the number is set by adult size rather than the size they arrive at. Goldfish, shubunkins and orfe suit a planted pond of two feet or more and stay small enough that a modest pond carries a decent group. Koi are a different animal: plan on 250 gallons per adult fish, or 500 for large or show-grade specimens, so a 2,000-gallon pond holds around eight adults comfortably. The near-universal mistake is stocking to the fish you buy, then finding that a 6-inch koi becomes a 24-inch koi and the filter never grew with it.

Three feet minimum, four to five feet recommended, six worth having on a large build. Depth stabilises temperature through a Los Angeles summer, gives fish a refuge no wading bird can reach, and gives koi the water column to develop proper body shape instead of staying stunted. It has a code consequence as well, since anything over eighteen inches is treated as a pool for barrier purposes. Depth is also the one thing that cannot be added later without emptying and re-lining the pond, so it is worth being decisive about at design stage.

Build the defense in. Three feet or more of depth with steep sides means a heron cannot wade, and a fish cave, shelf overhang or length of wide pipe on the bottom gives the fish somewhere to go. Raccoons work the shallow margins at night, so avoid a gentle shelf all the way round. On top of that, netting through spring and autumn is the only complete answer, and a motion-activated sprinkler is unexpectedly effective. Great blue herons are common along the LA River, Ballona Creek and the Sepulveda Basin, so this is a local problem rather than a theoretical one.

Three stages. Mechanical removes solids before they break down, which means a surface skimmer and, on fish ponds, a bottom drain feeding a settlement chamber. Biological converts ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate on media with enough surface area and slow enough flow to give the bacteria contact time. Ultraviolet kills suspended algae and is worth having on any sunny pond in this city. Alongside those, the whole volume should turn over about once an hour, twice on a heavy koi load. A plant-led water garden needs far less of all of it than a koi pond does.

Because light and nutrient exceed what the plants and the filter can absorb. The usual causes are a new pond that has not cycled, too many fish, overfeeding, not enough plant coverage, an undersized filter or full afternoon sun. A correctly sized ultraviolet clarifier clears suspended green water in a few days, but that treats the symptom. The lasting fix is surface shade from lilies, more marginal planting, less food, an honest look at the fish count and filtration that matches the volume. String algae, the hair-like growth on rocks and falls, is a separate problem and ultraviolet does nothing to it.

On any pond with fish, yes. The biological filter is a living bacteria colony that needs continuous oxygenated flow and starts dying within hours of the pump stopping, which is why ponds switched off at night crash a few days later. Circulation also keeps oxygen in the water through a hot Los Angeles night and stops mosquitoes finding still water to breed in. A modern energy-efficient pump on a typical back yard pond costs roughly $15 to $40 a month at local rates. If the waterfall carries into a bedroom, valve the flow back at night rather than switching it off.

All three, with different adjustments. Valley and Baldwin Hills clay holds water behind a liner, so the excavation gets a drainage layer and a sump, and its expansiveness is one reason we use flexible EPDM rather than rigid concrete. Foothill decomposed granite and cobble dig fast and drain well, though large rock slows a dig and occasionally changes the shape. Beach-city sand cuts easily but will not hold a vertical face, so excavations get battered back or shored. We check which one your street sits on before quoting rather than after.

45-mil EPDM rubber over 8oz geotextile underlayment on almost everything. It stays flexible through heat and ground movement, takes any shape, is patched in place rather than replaced, and routinely outlasts its twenty-year warranty. Concrete and shotcrete suit formal pools, raised walls and structural work, and they need proper waterproofing since they crack on expansive soil otherwise. Preformed plastic shells are cheap and small, awkward to edge convincingly, and brittle within a decade in this climate. We do not install them.

Weekly there is about five minutes of owner work: check the level, glance in the skimmer basket, look at the fish and feed sensibly. Monthly a professional visit covers filter media, pump check, water testing, bacteria dosing and plant work. Annually the pond wants a full cleanout with the fish held safely and the sediment taken off the bottom, usually in late winter. Seasonally, the big one in Los Angeles is netting from October through leaf fall, which does more for the following summer than anything else on the list.

A well-built and well-kept water feature is treated by appraisers much as any quality hardscape is, and landscape industry surveys have long put good landscaping at roughly five to twelve percent of home value. In this city the effect is strongest where the lot is small and the street is loud, because a pond changes how the outdoor space gets used rather than only how it looks. The qualifier is real: a neglected green pond with a cracked shell reads to a buyer as a job they will have to deal with, which is an argument for building it properly and keeping it serviced.

A small garden pond of around 6ft by 8ft with a pump, a skimmer and simple planting starts near $5,000. The common Los Angeles back yard build, roughly 11ft by 16ft with a stream, a waterfall and full filtration, runs $12,000 to $35,000. Koi systems with bottom drains and settlement chambers, natural swimming ponds and estate-scale water go from $50,000 to well past $100,000. The largest swings are access, depth and rockwork rather than surface area alone, which is why two ponds the same size on two streets can be priced very differently.

A simple pondless feature can be in and running in two days. A typical back yard pond with a stream and a waterfall takes one to two weeks on site. Large koi systems, swim ponds and anything with structural walls or hillside grading run three to six weeks. Add time in front of that for design and permitting, which in the City of Los Angeles is usually two to four weeks depending on whether a barrier or grading review is involved. The water goes in near the end, and the biology needs another four to six weeks after that to fully settle.

Usually, yes. California treats any body of water deeper than eighteen inches as a pool for safety purposes, so a pond past that depth brings barrier requirements and a permit through LA Building and Safety. Electrical for the pump needs its own permit and a GFCI circuit. On a slope, the hillside grading ordinance applies to the excavation, and in some hillside areas an engineered plan is required. Shallow water gardens under eighteen inches, disappearing fountains and pondless waterfalls usually avoid all of it, which is one honest reason to consider them. We file whatever the job needs and hand you the signed card at the end.

Somewhere you can see it from the house, mostly out of the hottest afternoon sun, away from the drip line of a big deciduous tree, and never in the low point where the yard already drains. Four to six hours of sun a day suits lilies without cooking the water; full all-day sun in the Valley pushes algae and evaporation hard. Keep it clear of tree roots that will lift a shelf, clear of the septic field on the rural parcels, and close enough to power for a proper GFCI circuit. We walk this before drawing anything, because moving a pond on paper is free.

Any of them, with two adjustments. Clay holds water behind the liner, so the excavation gets a drainage layer and a sump where the water table or the irrigation runoff can push a liner up from below. Clay is also expansive, which is why we use EPDM rather than rigid concrete on most Valley and Baldwin Hills sites. Well-compacted clay can even serve as the bottom of a large farm pond without a liner, though almost every urban build in Los Angeles is lined regardless because seepage into a neighbor is not a risk worth taking.

45-mil EPDM rubber over 8oz geotextile underlayment, seamed with proper tape and primer where a single sheet will not cover. It stays flexible in cold and heat, tolerates ground movement, and is repairable in place with a patch rather than a rebuild. Manufacturers warrant it for twenty years and it routinely outlasts that. Concrete and shotcrete are options for formal or structural work and get waterproofing and a sealer. We do not install preformed plastic shells, which are limiting to edge properly and brittle in this climate.

Yes, and slopes usually produce the better-looking result, because a stream and a waterfall have somewhere real to come from. The pond sits at the bottom on a cut-and-fill bench, the stream is built down the grade, and the pump line runs back up. What changes is the engineering: cut slopes need to be stable, fill needs to be compacted, and in the Los Angeles hillside areas the grading ordinance and sometimes a soils report apply. We quote hillside work with that included rather than discovering it at permit stage.

A well-built, well-maintained water feature is generally treated by appraisers the way any quality hardscape is, and landscape industry surveys have long put good landscaping at roughly five to twelve percent of home value. In Los Angeles the effect is strongest where the yard is small and the noise is real, because a pond changes how the outdoor space is used rather than just how it looks. The qualifier matters: a neglected green pond with a cracked shell reads to a buyer as a liability, which is an argument for building it properly and keeping it on a service schedule.

Yes, and small ponds are a large part of what we do in Silver Lake, Venice, Santa Monica and the older parts of Mid-City where the lots are narrow. A 6ft by 8ft pond with a short stream fits a side yard or a courtyard and still reads as real water. Below that size the water heats and swings too fast for fish, so we usually steer very tight spaces toward a pondless waterfall or a self-contained fountain, which give the sound and the movement with no open water to balance.

Weekly, there is five minutes of owner work: check the water level, glance at the skimmer basket, look at the fish and feed sensibly. Monthly, a professional visit covers filter media, pump check, water testing, bacteria dosing and plant work. Annually, the pond wants a full cleanout with the fish out and the sediment off the bottom, usually late winter before the water warms. Ponds under heavy tree cover or with a big koi load move to twice a month; a lightly stocked water garden can stretch to quarterly.

Green water is suspended single-celled algae, and it blooms when light and nutrient exceed what the plants and the biofilter can take up. The usual causes are a new pond that has not cycled, too many fish, too much food, not enough plant coverage, an undersized filter or full afternoon sun. A correctly sized UV clarifier will clear it within a few days, but that treats the symptom. The durable fix is surface shade from lilies, more marginal planting, less feeding, an honest look at the fish count and a filter that matches the volume. String algae, the long hair-like kind on rocks and falls, is a separate problem and UV does nothing for it.

Yes, on any pond with fish. The biological filter is a bacteria colony that needs continuous oxygenated flow, and it starts dying within hours of the pump stopping, which is why ponds that get switched off overnight crash a few days later. Circulation is also what keeps oxygen in the water through a Los Angeles summer night and what stops mosquitoes breeding. A modern energy-efficient pump on a typical back yard pond costs roughly $15 to $40 a month to run, and it is the cheapest part of owning a pond. The waterfall can be valved back at night if the sound carries into a bedroom.

The fish come out into an aerated holding tank of their own pond water. The pond is drained, and the sediment, leaf litter and muck are removed from the bottom and out of the gravel. Rocks and gravel are rinsed rather than scrubbed sterile, because the biofilm on them is part of the filtration. The liner and the seams get inspected while they are visible, the plumbing, skimmer and biofalls are cleaned and checked, the plants are divided and replanted, then a slow refill with dechlorination, fresh bacteria and the fish returned once temperatures match. It is a half to full day on most ponds.

Yes, and it is most of what this side of the business does. Los Angeles has decades of ponds behind it, plenty of them built by landscapers who never came back. The first visit is an assessment rather than a tidy: volume, turnover, filter and pump condition, fish load, plant coverage, liner state and a full water test, written up so you know what you actually own. Sometimes the answer is a straightforward service schedule. Sometimes it is a pump or filter that was never the right size. Occasionally it is that the pond was built badly enough that repair money is better spent on a rebuild, and we will say so.

Depth and geometry first. Three feet or more with steep sides gives fish somewhere a heron cannot wade to, while a gently shelving pond is a wading bird’s buffet. Add a refuge, which can be a fish cave, a shelf overhang or a length of wide pipe on the bottom. Raccoons work the shallow margins at night, so a steep first shelf helps against them too. Netting through spring and autumn, a motion-activated sprinkler and keeping the fish trained not to beg at a fixed spot all help. Full protection is a net; everything else raises the odds.

Southern California ponds run all year, so there is no shutdown and no de-icer. Below about 50°F koi metabolism slows and feeding should stop, because food they cannot digest sits in the gut and causes problems. Keep the pump running for oxygen and flow. The real winter work is debris: leaf fall runs late here, and a net over the pond from October through December saves a green May. Storms bring silt and green waste into ponds on hillside lots, so the skimmer wants checking after a big one.

Maybe. Evaporation alone takes about an inch to an inch and a half a week off an unshaded Los Angeles pond in high summer, and a long, shallow stream can add to that on a windy site. A useful first test is to switch the pump off overnight and mark the level: if it holds still with the pump off but drops with it on, the loss is in the stream, the falls or a plumbing joint rather than the basin. If it drops either way and then stops at a particular height, the leak is at that level. Most leaks we find are a settled rock pinning the liner below the waterline at the waterfall edge, which is a same-day fix.

Three feet is the minimum we will build for koi, four to five feet is what we recommend, and six is worth it on a large pond. Depth does three things: it stabilises water temperature through Los Angeles summers and the odd cold snap, it gives fish somewhere a wading heron cannot reach, and it gives koi the water column they need to develop proper body shape rather than staying stunted. Depth also has a code consequence here, since anything over eighteen inches is treated as a pool for barrier and permit purposes.

A koi pond is built for fish and a water garden is built for plants, and almost every specification follows from that. Koi ponds are three to five feet deep with a bottom drain, a settlement chamber, heavy biological filtration, high turnover, continuous aeration and relatively sparse planting, because koi eat and uproot plants. Water gardens are one to two feet deep, densely planted with lilies and marginals, lightly stocked with goldfish if anything, and filtered far more modestly because the plants do much of the work. Water gardens cost less and are more forgiving. Koi ponds cost more and keep large fish healthy for decades. Trying to run koi in a water garden is where most of the problems we get called about begin.

Plan on about 250 gallons per adult koi, and 500 per fish if you want large or show-grade specimens. A 2,000-gallon pond therefore comfortably holds around eight adult koi, not the twenty small ones it would appear to hold on the day they go in. The mistake almost everybody makes is stocking to the size of the fish at purchase: a 6-inch koi becomes a 24-inch koi, and the waste load grows with it. Overstocking shows up as ammonia spikes, persistent green water, stunted growth and disease. If you plan to add fish over time, size the filtration for the pond you will have in five years.

Sometimes, and it depends almost entirely on depth. If the pond is already three feet or more, adding filtration, aeration and a skimmer is straightforward and we do it regularly. If it is a typical two-foot garden pond, the honest answer is that the useful upgrade is a rebuild: a bottom drain has to sit at the lowest point under the liner, and retrofitting one means emptying the pond and re-lining it anyway. We assess the existing build, price both options and let you compare, rather than selling an upgrade that leaves the fundamental problem in place.

Pond-store koi run $20 to $75. Good-quality domestic and imported fish from a specialist dealer run a few hundred dollars each, and show-grade Japanese koi go into the thousands. Southern California is one of the better places in the country to buy, with several serious dealers within driving distance. Whatever you buy, quarantine it for two to four weeks in a separate tank with its own filtration before it joins the pond. Nearly every disease outbreak in an established pond arrives with a new fish, and the cost of a quarantine tank is trivial next to losing a stocked pond.

Design first: four feet of depth with steep sides means a heron cannot wade, and a fish cave, shelf overhang or length of wide pipe on the bottom gives the koi somewhere to go when a shadow passes. Raccoons work the shallow margins at night, so avoiding a gently shelving edge all the way round helps against them too. Beyond the build, netting through spring and autumn is the only complete answer, and a motion-activated sprinkler is surprisingly effective against both. Herons are common across Los Angeles along the river, Ballona Creek and the Sepulveda Basin, so this is not a hypothetical problem here.

Three stages, in order. Mechanical: a bottom drain feeding a settlement chamber or vortex, plus a surface skimmer, so solids leave the water before they break down. Biological: media with enough surface area and slow enough flow for bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate, sized to the fish load rather than to the gallons. Ultraviolet: a correctly sized clarifier that kills suspended algae, which matters on a sunny Los Angeles pond with the light fish ponds get. On top of that, aeration running continuously and turnover of one to two pond volumes an hour. Skip the settlement stage and the biological media clogs; skip the aeration and the fish struggle in August.

Four to six weeks from filling, and the wait is not optional. A new filter has no bacteria in it, so ammonia from the first fish has nothing to convert it and levels climb until they are toxic. The pond is cycled by seeding beneficial bacteria and either running it fishless with an ammonia source or stocking a very small number of hardy fish and testing daily. When ammonia and nitrite both read zero and nitrate is climbing, the filter is working. Then stock gradually over a few months rather than all at once. Most new-pond fish losses in this city are a cycle that was rushed.

It is a swimming body of water kept clean by biology instead of chemistry. A deep, unplanted swim zone is paired with a shallow gravel bed planted with reeds, rushes and iris, and a pump moves water slowly between them. Bacteria on the gravel and plant roots take up the nitrogen and phosphorus that algae would otherwise use, so the water stays clear without chlorine, bromine or salt. From a chair it reads as one pond, because the wall between the zones sits just below the surface. What you swim in is much closer to a clean lake than to a pool.

Yes, in a properly built and established pond. The regeneration zone removes the nutrient that would otherwise feed algae and bacteria, and continuous circulation and skimming handle the rest. Natural swimming pools have been standard across Europe for decades with a good public-health record, including at municipal scale. The water will not look like a chlorinated pool: expect a faint green cast, a living edge and a floor you can see rather than a tiled blue. If you want extra reassurance, an ultraviolet unit on the return is compatible with the system.

Some algae on rocks and on the gravel bed is normal and healthy, and it is part of what is doing the filtering. Green water is not, and it means the regeneration zone is undersized, the flow is short-circuiting through part of the bed instead of the whole of it, or the plants have not established yet. New ponds are cloudier in their first summer and improve markedly in the second as the roots and biofilm develop. Persistent green water in an established pond is a design problem rather than a treatment problem, which is why the bed sizing is the part we will not compromise on.

Often, yes, and it is a good use of an existing shell. The two routes are to build a regeneration zone alongside the pool and plumb the two together, keeping the full swim area, or to convert the shallow end of the existing shell into gravel and planting, which is cheaper and costs swim space. The existing structure, plumbing and equipment pad usually carry real value into the conversion. Conversions in Los Angeles typically run $40,000 to $90,000 depending on which route and how much of the existing hardware is reusable.

No, when they are running. Mosquitoes need still water for several days to complete a life cycle, and a swim pond circulates continuously with a skimmed surface. The regeneration zone also supports dragonfly larvae, damselflies and other predators that eat mosquito larvae, and fish can be added to the plant zone if you want more insurance. The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District provides mosquitofish to residents at no charge. The one real risk is a pond left with the pump off for a week in summer, which is true of any body of water.

Enough for the swim area you want plus a regeneration zone of a third to half the total water surface. In practice a usable swim pond starts around 800 to 1,000 square feet of total water, which needs a yard that can carry it plus the surround. This is why most of our swim pond work is on the larger lots out toward Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Tarzana, La Cañada and the bigger Palisades properties rather than on a standard city lot. If the space will not take a proper plant bed, we will say so rather than build something that goes green.

It tracks the weather, with no heater involved. In Los Angeles that means comfortable swimming from late spring through October in most years, and genuinely warm water in high summer because the shallow regeneration zone gains heat and feeds it back. It also means the pond is cold in January, unlike a heated pool. Some owners add solar heating to the swim zone, which works, though pushing water temperature much past the mid-eighties starts to affect the biology and is not something we encourage.

The work is gardening rather than chemistry. Skim the surface and keep the skimmer and pump clear, cut back and thin the regeneration planting once or twice a year, remove settled debris from the swim zone floor, top up for evaporation and check the flow distribution across the bed. There is nothing to test, no chlorine to dose, no salt cell to replace and no backwashing. Most owners find the hours comparable to a pool. We run seasonal visits for owners who would rather not do the plant work themselves.

A retention pond holds water permanently and loses it to infiltration and evaporation, so there is a standing water level between storms. A detention basin holds a storm temporarily and releases it slowly through a restricted outlet, so it is usually dry in between and the open space can be used for something else. Retention needs soil that will take water and is the better answer where groundwater recharge is a goal. Detention is about cutting peak flow to the storm drain. Which one a site needs comes out of the drainage report and the soils, not out of preference.

If the project is new development or significant redevelopment in Los Angeles County, some form of on-site stormwater management is very likely required under the Low Impact Development ordinance, and the civil engineer will have shown it on the drawings. That might be a basin, or it might be bioswales, permeable paving, dry wells or a combination. What we can tell you is what the shown solution costs to build and whether the site conditions actually support it, particularly the infiltration assumption, which is the item most often taken from a table rather than from a test pit.

Inspect after every significant storm and at least quarterly. Clean out the forebay when it is a third full, which on a site with disturbed ground upstream can be annually and on a settled site every few years. Keep the outlet structure and the trash rack clear, that being the most common cause of a basin backing up. Mow or cut back the banks once or twice a year, keeping vegetation out of the flow path but leaving the deep-rooted planting that holds the slopes. Once a decade or so, expect a full sediment removal to restore design volume.

Yes, and on visible sites it should. A basin that holds a permanent pool can be built with a proper edge, set stone, aeration and planted margins, and read as an amenity while still doing its hydraulic job. The constraints are real: the design volume, the freeboard, the outlet and the maintenance access all have to survive the makeover, and the planting has to tolerate inundation. But the alternative, a bare fenced hole at the front of a property, is a design failure rather than a requirement, and it is usually the version an HOA board is unhappy about.

Sediment. Every storm delivers material into the basin, and if there is no forebay to catch it where it can be dug out, it spreads across the floor and quietly eats the design volume. On infiltration basins the same fine sediment seals the base and the infiltration rate collapses, so the basin holds water for days when it used to drain in hours. Both are fixable: remove the accumulated material, restore the elevations, rebuild or add a forebay, and where infiltration has sealed, scarify and reinstate the permeable base.

Yes. Course ponds usually serve as hazards, irrigation storage and stormwater management at the same time, and the work ranges from building new water into a redesign to restoring ponds that have silted up, lost their banks or gone anaerobic and started smelling in late summer. The common package is dredging or sediment removal, edge and bank rebuilding, aeration to keep the water column turned over, liner repair where there is one, and planting that survives both carts and inundation. We work around play schedules, which on a live course is most of the planning.

A well-designed one does not, and a neglected one does. The problem is water that sits still for more than a few days without predators, which is exactly what a detention basin with a partially blocked outlet produces. The answers are a functioning outlet so the basin drains in the design time, aeration or circulation on permanently wet basins, planting and edge conditions that support dragonflies and other predators, and mosquitofish where there is a permanent pool. The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District takes complaints about standing water on private property seriously, which is another reason the outlet is worth keeping clear.

A small residential or HOA basin is usually one to two weeks on site. A commercial basin with concrete inlet and outlet structures, engineered slopes and full planting runs four to ten weeks depending on the volume and how much spoil has to leave. Golf course restoration depends far more on access and play schedule than on the excavation itself. The permitting and drainage review in front of the work typically runs longer than the construction, so the useful thing to know early is where the project sits in that queue.

A pond is an open body of water with a biological system in it: depth, plants, usually fish, filtration and a balance to maintain. A water feature moves a small amount of water over a visible surface and hides the reservoir underground, so there is no standing water, no ecosystem and nothing to balance. That difference has practical consequences in Los Angeles. Features avoid the eighteen-inch depth rule that brings barrier and permit requirements, they are safe around small children and dogs, they use very little water, and their maintenance is a pump and a basin rather than water chemistry.

No. The water recirculates, so consumption is only what evaporates and what splashes out. A small urn or column feature loses a few gallons a week in summer and less the rest of the year. A long stream with a wide surface loses more, but it is still a fraction of what the equivalent area of lawn drinks. An autofill valve plumbed to the irrigation line handles top-ups automatically, which is worth fitting on anything you would rather not think about while you are away.

More than people expect from a small feature and less than they expect from a big one. Sound comes from the drop height and the surface the water lands on far more than from the volume: a thin sheet falling eighteen inches into a hard basin is louder than a large stream sliding over gravel. A single urn is a soft trickle at conversational distance. Basalt columns are quiet. A spillway bowl with a foot of drop is clearly audible across a patio. We valve the flow at commissioning so you can set it where you want, and it is worth listening to one running before choosing.

Very little. Rinse the pump screen every month or two, keep leaves out of the basin, top up if there is no autofill, and once or twice a year drain the reservoir, wash the gravel and refill. In hard-water Los Angeles a light scale film builds on stone and ceramic over time, which comes off with a descaler made for the purpose. If the feature runs year round, a pump lasts several years. That is the whole routine, which is why features suit people who want the water but not the hobby.

Usually not for the feature itself, because there is no standing water over eighteen inches deep and therefore no barrier requirement. The electrical is a different matter: a new outdoor circuit needs a permit and has to be on a GFCI, and that is worth doing correctly since it is the part that is genuinely dangerous done badly. Wall-mounted features fixed to a structure and anything involving a retaining wall can bring their own requirements. We tell you at quoting stage which category your job falls into rather than finding out later.

Yes for a self-contained one. Urns, columns and small basin features can sit on a hard surface with the reservoir above ground and concealed rather than dug in, which suits patios, terraces and roof decks. The two questions are weight, since stone and full water add up quickly on a structure, and drainage, since splash on a sealed deck has to go somewhere. On a balcony we would want to know the structural loading before specifying anything in stone.

A running feature will not. Mosquitoes need water that sits still for several days, and moving water over gravel with a submerged pump gives them nowhere to complete a life cycle. The risk comes from a feature switched off and left with water in it, or from a saucer or blocked gutter nearby that nobody is thinking about. If a feature is going to be off for a stretch, drain the reservoir. That is the whole precaution.

Yes, and it is a steady part of the work. The usual faults are a reservoir far too small for the surface area, a pump with no isolation so servicing means dismantling the stone, no autofill, splash landing somewhere it stains, or an extension cord doing the job a proper circuit should. Most of those are fixable without starting over: enlarging or supplementing the basin, adding a service hatch and unions, plumbing an autofill and running a correct GFCI circuit. We will look at it and tell you whether it is worth repairing or replacing.

A waterfall and stream that run into a buried reservoir covered with gravel and cobble, so there is no open water anywhere. The pump sits in the reservoir under a service hatch and pushes water back to the top continuously. You get the sound and the movement of a stream with none of the pond ownership: no fish, no algae balance, no depth to trigger California barrier requirements, very little water use and maintenance that amounts to keeping leaves out and rinsing a pump screen. It is the most common waterfall we build in Los Angeles, and it is almost always the right answer where there are young children.

A small pondless fall of three or four feet with a short stream runs about $6,000 to $12,000. A typical back yard feature with a stream of eight to fifteen feet, set boulders and lighting runs $12,000 to $30,000. Large hillside runs, multi-drop falls and anything needing a retaining structure or a crane start around $35,000 and go up from there. The stone and the access are the two biggest variables, which is why a fall of the same size can be priced very differently on two streets in the same neighborhood.

Loud enough to mask traffic if it is placed near where you sit, and disappointing if it is at the far end of the garden. Sound comes from the drop height and from how many times the water breaks on the way down, more than from the volume of water. A two-foot fall splitting across three ledges makes more noise than a four-foot sheet. We valve the flow at commissioning so you can turn it down, and a lot of owners run theirs at half in the evening. On a bedroom-facing garden it is worth deciding this before the stone is set.

A modern variable-speed pump on a typical back yard waterfall costs roughly $15 to $40 a month in electricity at Los Angeles rates, running continuously. The number is driven by head, which is how high the water has to be lifted, and by flow. That is why an oversized pump chosen to force a bigger sheet is the expensive mistake in this trade: you pay for it every month for the life of the feature. Sizing the pump correctly to the fall, and using a variable-speed unit that can be dialled back, is worth more over ten years than almost any other decision on the quote.

For a pondless waterfall, usually not, because there is no standing water over eighteen inches and therefore no barrier requirement. The electrical still needs a permit and a GFCI circuit. If the fall feeds an open pond, then the pond depth governs and the permit and barrier rules apply to the whole thing. On hillside lots, cutting or filling to build the grade can bring the grading ordinance into play regardless of the water. We work out which of those apply at quoting stage and file whatever the job needs.

It helps considerably and it is not a filter on its own. A fall aerates the water, which supports the bacteria doing the biological work and keeps oxygen up on hot nights, and the biofalls unit at the top of most falls is where that biological media actually lives. Circulation from the fall also stops dead zones forming. What it does not do is remove solids, which is the skimmer and the bottom drain, or clear suspended algae, which is the UV. A pond with a good fall and no mechanical filtration will still turn green.

Yes, and most of Los Angeles is flat where the houses are. The grade gets built rather than found: the spoil from the pond or reservoir excavation becomes a berm behind the fall, planted so it reads as a rise in the garden rather than a mound with rocks on it. Three to four feet of built grade is straightforward and gives a genuinely good fall. Beyond that it starts wanting a retaining structure to look right, and at that point the honest conversation is whether a longer, lower stream would give more sound for the money.

On a pondless fall, very little: keep leaves out of the reservoir and off the stone, rinse the pump screen every month or two, top up for evaporation if there is no autofill, and once a year drain, wash the gravel and refill. String algae will grow on the wet stone in sunny spots and comes off with a brush or a suitable treatment. On a fall feeding a pond, the fall itself is easy and the pond is the thing with the schedule, which our pond maintenance visits cover.

Match it to the architecture. Tiered cast stone fountains suit the Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean houses that fill Hancock Park, Pasadena, Beverly Hills and the older Valley streets, and they want a courtyard or a formal axis to stand in. Wall fountains suit narrow spaces because they use no floor area. Jet and bubbler fountains at deck level suit modern houses and commercial entries. Disappearing fountains, where the water vanishes into gravel over a hidden reservoir, suit anywhere there are small children or where nobody wants standing water to look after. If you tell us the house and send a photo of the spot, we will narrow it to two.

A small self-contained fountain supplied and installed runs roughly $1,500 to $4,000. A proper cast stone tiered fountain, set on a prepared base with a dedicated circuit and an autofill, runs $4,000 to $12,000 depending on the piece. Large custom stone, commercial entry features and anything needing a crane go well beyond that. Install-only, where you have already bought the fountain, is usually $800 to $3,000 depending on the weight, the base work and how far the electrical has to come.

No. The water recirculates and the only losses are evaporation and splash. A typical garden fountain in Los Angeles loses a few gallons a week in summer and much less in winter, which is a rounding error next to any irrigated planting. An autofill valve teed off an irrigation line handles it automatically. The bigger water-related issue here is not consumption but hardness: our tap water leaves mineral scale on wet surfaces, which is a cleaning matter rather than a cost one.

Hard water. Los Angeles tap water carries a lot of dissolved mineral, and as water evaporates off a fountain that mineral stays behind as scale. It shows as a white film on cast stone and as visible crusting on dark ceramic, metal and glass. It is cosmetic rather than damaging. Treat it with a descaler made for fountains rather than household acid, which can etch cast stone and ceramic. Keeping the fountain topped up and running slows it down, because a basin that repeatedly evaporates to nothing concentrates the mineral fastest.

Usually, yes, and it is a steady part of what we do. The common faults are a seized or burned-out pump, almost always from running dry, a blocked riser or nozzle, a cracked basin or bowl in cast stone, a tilted base making the spill uneven, or an electrical supply that was never correct. Pumps are inexpensive and quick to replace, cast stone can be patched and resealed, and re-leveling is a half day with the right equipment. It is worth a look before assuming a fountain is finished, because the majority of the dead ones we see are running again the same day.

Almost never for the fountain, since a basin is well under the eighteen inches of depth that brings barrier requirements in California. The electrical is the part that needs a permit: a new outdoor circuit has to be permitted, in conduit and on a GFCI. Fixing a heavy wall fountain to a structure can raise a structural question on a large piece, and commercial installations in public areas have their own accessibility and safety considerations. For a residential garden fountain, the electrical is the whole of it.

It can run continuously and most do. Running keeps the water moving, which stops mosquitoes and slows scale, and fountain pumps use very little power. Turning it off overnight is fine if the sound carries into a bedroom, and a timer handles that. Winter shutdown is not needed in Los Angeles, since freezing is not a real risk here, though anyone shutting one down for a stretch should drain the basin rather than leave standing water in it. Never leave the pump running with the basin low, which is how most fountain pumps die.

Tiered and pedestal fountains hold shallow water in a basin, which is a lower risk than a pond and not zero. The safest option by a distance is a disappearing fountain, where the water wells over a stone or urn and vanishes into gravel with no accessible standing water at all, and nothing over eighteen inches deep to bring barrier requirements. Deck-level jet fountains are the other child-friendly answer and are actively designed to be played in. If small children are the concern, those are the two we would point you at.