With the summer months pushing temperatures over 100 degrees in some areas and humidity leaving drips of perspiration on people's brows, it might be time to consider a water feature to help enhance your home's appeal.

I'm writing this from the desert and everywhere you look, flowing, glistening, and pleasant-sounding water pours from fountains on commercial and home properties. It's alluring, welcoming, and calming. When it comes to selling your home, a water fountain can help to create a peaceful and enjoyable experience. It can also help to drown out noisy children playing nearby.

In Feng Shui, water is one of the essential elements and believed to create wealth and prosperity. When fountains are used indoors, they help to release healthy negative ions into the air. Surprisingly, if you're following a Feng Shui style of decorating, you'll never place a water feature in your bedroom. According to Feng Shui, doing so is never recommended because the water element of Feng Shui brings worry into the bed room.

However, most of us think of water fountains as being tranquil. In Feng Shui, placing the fountain outside of the bedroom has a very positive impact. A fountain in the East represents health and family, in the Southeast, prosperity and abundance, and in the North, career and path in life.

Regardless of whether you want to follow a Feng Shui way of decorating, finding a fountain that matches your decor is a simple way of enhancing your home's appeal.

Landscape designer, Cynthia Egger tells HGTV.com, that even very small homes can find room to add an outdoor water feature. An out-of-the-way, low-traffic spot like the edge of the patio can be the perfect area.

The types of water fountains vary as much as individual homeowner's decorating styles. Choose the right option that best suits your needs and budget. Installing even just a small pond can cost several thousand dollars. Of course, you can do it yourself but that can be timely and challenging, especially if you're not experienced.

However, don't let that deter you from putting in a fountain. There are many self-contained, no-plumbing required fountains that embellish a property without requiring the homeowner to have weeks of manual labor involved or significant dollars spent.

These no-plumbing fountains, however, do need to be cleaned and maintained or they begin to look corroded. But that's relatively easy to do. The pumps are typically placed inside the base so they're not visible. If you don't clean the water out from the base periodically the pump can become jammed and stop working, then it could need to be replaced sooner than if you changed the water a few times a year (depending on where you live).

Published: July 30, 2010

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Phoebe Chongchua is an award-winning journalist, an author, customer service trainer/speaker, and founder of Setting the Service Standard, a customer service training and consulting program offered by Live Fit Enterprises (LFE) based in San Diego, California. She is the publisher of Live Fit Magazine, an online publication that features information on real estate/finance, physical fitness, travel, and philanthropy. Her company, LFE, specializes in media services including marketing, PR, writing, commercials, corporate videos, customer service training, and keynotes & seminars. Visit her magazine website: www.LiveFitMagazine.com. Phoebe's articles, feature stories, and columns appear in various publications including The Coast News, Del Mar Village Voice, Rancho Santa Fe Review, and Today's Local News in San Diego, as well as numerous Internet sites. She holds a California real estate license. Phoebe worked for KGTV/10News in San Diego as a Newscaster, Reporter and Community Affairs Specialist for more than a decade. Phoebe's writing is also featured in Donald Trump's book: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying Foreclosures. She is the author of If the Trash Stinks, TAKE IT OUT! 14 Worriless Principles for Your Success. Contact Phoebe at (858) 259-3646 or . Visit PhoebeChongchua.com for more information.