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[Bluerobin]

Yet another person with construction questions!  So in one of my forts I tried to make a waterfall in my dining room for the ambiance.  Basically I had pumps going from the river, up to a 1 square wide channel above the dining room.  At the end of the channel (over the dining room) was a hole for the water to fall through.  The idea was that the water would fall down from the channel through a hole in the ceiling of the dining room, through a hole in the floor, and into a ditch that redirects the water back to the river.  I put grates over the holes, both in the ceiling and the floor, thinking "hey, I don't want my dwarves to fall into the hole!" 

A couple of problems showed up when I started the pumps.  First of all, water started pooling around the holes in both the ceiling and the floor.  Second, the water started stacking up in the ditch and backed up into the dining room, partially flooding it before I shut the pumps off.  I think I figured out the problem causing the pooling around the holes (either due to the grates or due to the hole not being big enough), but I was wondering if there was a way to solve the flooding problem.

I opted to go for describing rather than drawing (for time's sake), but I can draw it out later if people need/want.

[puke]

stick a pump in the ditch?

[Hawkfrost]

You need a bigger ditch, and maybe some pumps.

Remember, water stacks.

[Ivefan]

Having a 2z deep drainage hole under your grates will help.
Is the drainage pipe at the same level or above the river? If it's at the same level i think you might need a pump there to increase the outflow and prevent any backflow from the river.
At times water might spill on the floor around your grate due to some water falling outside of the planned path.
i think the splashes can be reduced by using a longer Z-pipe or make the water hit a wall if the fall is next by it

[Magua]

Simply enough, ensure that the ditch can hold all the water in the system.  It may be easier if you throw some damming device over the input so that you can close the input after enough water is in the system.

Assuming you have water coming from above, there is no method that can keep an infinite amount of water from overflowing a finite space.  Your options:

1) Be able to close the input once you have enough water, as mentioned above.
2) Drain the water into an infinite space -- chasm, bottomless pit, etc. 
3) Rig a machine to destroy the water (pressure plate set to trigger a bridge to atom smash the water, for example).
4) Rig pumps in the ditch to return the water to the input (which may involve overflowing there).

(A pump in the ditch will pressurize water to that pump's level, so that that water will not overflow.  However, a pump will not pump if its output square is full.  Once it is full, water will start to stack behind the pump, leading to an overflow.)

[Skanky]

My waterfalls have this type of drainage:

Code: [Select]

  #.#
#.....#
  #.## = grate
. - floor

No flooding issues.

[Bluerobin]

All right, so it looks like closing the system's the key to avoiding overflow.  I don't quite get what you mean with that drainage system Skanky, unless you have the waterfall landing on the floor in the middle and just draining off into those grate, which is something I hadn't thought of doing.  Much more mist that way I'd imagine...  Thanks for everyone's help.

[Skanky]

You've got it.