Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Underwater Connection

I am installing a fountain in a pond and have not found a pump with a long enough cord.

My solution is to get a regular outdoor extension cord and cover the connection with a bowl of grease and enclose this in a tube (such as a bicycle inner tube) with both ends tightly closed with a plastic tie.

Is this a reasonable solution?

THanks for responses.

SethO

I wouldn't do it. Purchase an undewater connection kit. I know Aquatic Ecosytems has them. I don't believe they are that expensive. Water and electricity are a dangerous mix.

SethO,
Cecil is right. It won't work. Contrary to popular belief grease & water will mix. Water will eventually if not immediatly enter the rubber tube, permeate the "bowl of grease" causing a short & tripping the breaker or fuse feeding power to the pump. As Cecil said you should purchase the proper connector.
Ric

Home Depot sells underground wire connections. They are basically a wire nut filled with silicon. Use something like that, the bicycle tube idea would not be a bad addition for insurance, but I would fill it with silicon versus grease. Secure it with hose clamps rather than wire ties.

Also, rather than using a piece of bicycle tube, you can stick the wires into a piece of PVC with one end capped, and weight it so that it sinks, but the wire connections are in air (inside the pipe) rather than in water. So you must weight the open end of the pipe.

SethO-- I think you would also want to make sure your fountain is plugged into a G.F.I. controled circuit. Then if the G.F.I. trips you will know you have a problem before someone gets seriously injured or worse.
Dan

Seth,

Good idea! I forgot about that. I have GFI connections on all my power to the ponds. I have an aerator plugged into an outlet and have had it tripped by the GFI several times when my sprinkler saturated it. I know of someone that almost lost a child due to no GFI on a pond. It was a miracle the child lived. The child was not expected to live but recovered completely.