Building An Indoor Waterfall


Building an indoor waterfall is not as simple as stacking the rocks up. Building an indoor waterfall is both a mix of art and engineering with the willingness to get wet. The moment of joy comes when the pump is turned on and the music of waterfall is sounded. Building an indoor waterfall provides one with the most satisfying sensation of breathing the air in the plant life indoor.

Build An Indoor Waterfall In Proportion

Most people want a huge waterfall that is completely out of scale for their pond. Others want a tiny waterfall that just trickles. Having the right size requires a good landscaping knowledge and ecstatic sense.


With right scale of Waterfall in mind, it is important to then follow the right budget scale. Without careful planning, the costs of final design and decorative materials used can be way out of budget easily.

Main Structure Of An Indoor Waterfall

To build an indoor waterfall a container is required for the waterfall. The container must be big enough to hold the inner workings of the fountain as well as to hold enough water to keep the unit submerges in water continually, or else the pump will be burnt up.


Besides the container, other items needed for the building of waterfall are: weir, submersible Pump and water tubing. A weir is a barrier wall contained in a box with a protruding lip that accumulates the water from the pump. The weir allows the reservoir of water to flow into the container. Simply elevate the weir above the container and put tubing from the submersible pump into the weir. When the weir fills up, a sheet of water will fall over into the container. The weir can be hidden with rocks. To further camouflage the weir, hyacinths or other floating plants can be used in the weir.

Building The Indoor Waterfall

Always build the waterfall using same kind of rocks as the one used in pond container. Start only with large, flat and thin rocks and put them on top of liner. Round and little rocks cannot be used. After laying the first large rock, run water from the pump over it to make sure the water flows into the pond. Next, stack two or three thick and chunky rocks on each end of the bottom rock. Those rocks can be as much as 5 or 6” thick. Make sure they are flat on two sides so as to allow the building of other items on top of them.


Next place the second level of flat, thin and large rocks on the chunks. Again run water over to make sure the flow is going in the pond and not over the edge. Continue making levels, shimming as needed. Shimming must be done to keep the angle toward the pond and proper placement of rocks is most important to ensure stability of the falls.

Choice of Decorative Items

To finish the indoor waterfall, place the hose or hoses at right places with a rock on top to hold them in place. It would even be better to put a tiny rock in front of the hose to spread the water out. Put some plants in the back to hide the hoses and soften the rocks.


An indoor waterfall can be built with items made of ceramic, bronze, copper, aluminum, stainless steel, marble and even glass. Decorative items such as stones, pebbles, bamboo, driftwood and even gemstones can also be added.