A customer called and asked if we had any 12 AC volt pumps. We have always had 12 volt AC pumps. 12V. AC pumps that are attached to a transformer that needs to be plugged into a 115V current outlet. Now, this is okay... but what if???   ...as we were talking about them, the customer and I hit on the same idea at the same time...( only we had the pump to experiment with and he didn't).  

We took one of our 12v pumps and transformer out to the barrel fountains we had set up next to our walkway. We had already set up 12V walkway lights, including one light that is slightly taller than the barrel fountains. Does anyone realize where this story is headed yet?? We discovered that we could run our United Pump Model UT-85, 12 volt, 85 gallons per hour pump with the power from our already installed 12 volt walkway light supply line. Okay, maybe this is not an original idea... but anytime we make something work that we haven't found anywhere yet, it's original to us!! We thought this would be a great idea for extending the area of reach for our barrel fountains without doing costly electrical work. The spot we're thing about putting another fountain is across the driveway under a tree. We will purchase low voltage wire, tap into the 12V yard light current and run the low voltage wire across the driveway to our barrel where we can use our 12V pump to power our waterfall feature. The it is only 12V, the line can  buried a mere few inches under the ground without safety issues. 

Question: Will the small 12 V Halogen submersible lights work on the low voltage line?  You betcha!!! 

The only thing we haven't figured out yet is an easy way to switch our lights off and keep our pump running during the day. Our timer turns both the lights and the pump off at dawn. Since we are only amateurs at this, we are sure that someone out there has probably already thought up a way to turn one thing on and another off in these low voltage systems.  We may try some "zoning" experiments...  like with a low voltage multi-zone sprinkler timer. But that's another story.

NOTE: Since writing the above, we've found that there are 12 volt zoned transformer boxes for use with lights. 
 
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Fountain Builder or Fountains n Slate are not associated with the site above. This is for your help and assistance using and operating 2 different units at the same time.
We do thank Brian Smyth for allowing us to offer this to you.