Here comes summer, and here comes voluntary water rationing. A good
thing. Encourages smart water use and proper lawn care. But then
there's this business about your own special watering day. Huh? Let's
see. My neighbor -- the one with miles of PVC pipe under his lawn and
a controller that is perfectly happy drenching things when it's
pouring outside (but hey, only every five days!) appears to use
awesome amounts. Here I am with hoses, sprinkler attachments, $10
water volume regulators/timers, and one or two faucets feeding them
trying to water a lawn by just moving them around day after day the
old fashioned way. Doing it when I can, and where I can.

Now, I really don't need anyone to tell me that because they see one
of my sprinklers on what is not *my* day I'm not rationing properly.
Believe it or not, that has happened! (Now, otherwise I live in a
great neighborhood!)

It must have occurred to someone at the city that the 5-day program
based on your street address number is, for those who might be
inclined to take it seriously (yes, there are some who do), just a
jobs program for lawn sprinkler installers. You've got one day, it
seems they say, to get your whole lawn watered, and having PVC under
the grass and one knob is by far the easiest way to do it! One has to
wonder if this calendar program is sponsored by that industry.

Good for a smile every year whenever I see those silly calendars. One
of these years, maybe I'll get ditch-witch'd and PVC'd and then hang
one of 'em up ...

"Doug Lassiter" wrote in message
om...
Here comes summer, and here comes voluntary water rationing. A good
thing. Encourages smart water use and proper lawn care. But then
there's this business about your own special watering day. Huh? Let's
see. My neighbor -- the one with miles of PVC pipe under his lawn and
a controller that is perfectly happy drenching things when it's
pouring outside (but hey, only every five days!) appears to use
awesome amounts. Here I am with hoses, sprinkler attachments, $10
water volume regulators/timers, and one or two faucets feeding them
trying to water a lawn by just moving them around day after day the
old fashioned way. Doing it when I can, and where I can.

Now, I really don't need anyone to tell me that because they see one
of my sprinklers on what is not *my* day I'm not rationing properly.
Believe it or not, that has happened! (Now, otherwise I live in a
great neighborhood!)

Water conservation is as much about output as it is capacity. Let's say
everyone in a large city waters their lawn only once per week, but everyone
does it on the same day. It's easy to see the system would quickly get
overwhelmed. However if the watering is distributed equally over the entire
week, the same amount of water is being used, but the system is not being
overwhelmed.

Everyone in my neighborhood has an in-ground system (it was installed by the
builders for all homes). But it never fails I see several people's systems
going off right in the middle of a rainstorm. The first thing I did to my
system was to install a rain sensor. After a good hard rain, I set the rain
delay on my controller for a week.

For years I would drag hoses around. Now that I have a sprinkler system,
I'll never go back. It's a great way to go, but you really do need to
augment the controller with a little common sense.

For years I would drag hoses around. Now that I have a sprinkler
system,
I'll never go back. It's a great way to go, but you really do need
to
augment the controller with a little common sense.


Yeah, and that means something other than what my old boss would do --
just set his sprinkler system to come on in the middle of the night so
no one knew any better and he didn't have to pay a sprinkler guy to
come change it.

It has been awhile since I lived in Austin proper (Leander's rationing
laws are totally different) but as I recall, you could water any time,
any day via 'hose-in-hand.' I had several bonsai when I first
experienced water-rationing and the bonsai have to be watered every
day and some twice a day during the summer. I remember reading the
whole thing to make sure I wasn't going to get a ticket for watering
my little trees!

Anyway, I did have a number of neighbors inform me that it wasn't my
day.

John

"RoyDMercer" wrote in message ...

Water conservation is as much about output as it is capacity. Let's say
everyone in a large city waters their lawn only once per week, but everyone
does it on the same day. It's easy to see the system would quickly get
overwhelmed. However if the watering is distributed equally over the entire
week, the same amount of water is being used, but the system is not being
overwhelmed.


Good point (but not one that the city ever bothers to make!) But one
would think that if everyone watered pretty much at random,
fluctuations like this would not be that serious. True that on
weekends and holidays one might see more sprinklers in action because
people may have more flexibility. Are there days of the week that flow
volumes from the treatment plants are certifiably larger?

"Doug Lassiter" wrote in message
om...
"RoyDMercer" wrote in message
...

Water conservation is as much about output as it is capacity. Let's say
everyone in a large city waters their lawn only once per week, but
everyone
does it on the same day. It's easy to see the system would quickly get
overwhelmed. However if the watering is distributed equally over the
entire
week, the same amount of water is being used, but the system is not
being
overwhelmed.


Good point (but not one that the city ever bothers to make!) But one
would think that if everyone watered pretty much at random,
fluctuations like this would not be that serious. True that on
weekends and holidays one might see more sprinklers in action because
people may have more flexibility. Are there days of the week that flow
volumes from the treatment plants are certifiably larger?

Probably not and it's not really a mater of how much the treatment plants
are producing. The way most metropolitan and suburban water systems work is
they pump water into water towers and the water towers distribute the water
into the grid. When the water useage gets greater than the capacities of
the water towers can handle, more water towers must be built. So usually
where the problems come in is in the number and size of water towers you
have, not the output of the treatment plants.