Monday, September 27, 2010

Water carrying car: Update

Yesterday, Sunday, I hauled two 200 L tankfuls of water from the ditch using my car. Today, Monday, the forecast changed from cloud to rain in the space of an hour.

Now, it's raining 21 mm per hour which equals about 200 L every three minutes, and the garden is pretty much waterlogged.

I'd like to spit at Fate, but it would only add unwanted moisture.

4 comments:

Gia's Spot said...

Oh no! a "careful what you wish for" moment? Good luck!

Rod said...

Or perhaps a sign that I should have got my thinking hat on much earlier and begun irrigation when it would really have counted. Next year...

stew said...

Hello there!

Great reading again. I love hearing about people's improvised solutions to problems. The bit about the tap of the tank being open inside the car while you were filling it was hilarious!

This summer has been off the scale. We've been trying to establish a lawn and it was a nightmare during August. Everything else in the garden ended up getting ignored, not that I feel like doing much when its 30C and sunny enough for sunburn in two hours.

I've got the orange version of the same pump that has the same name but only the S off the end. We've got a well and does a fine job getting some water up for the garden. I thought about connecting it to the toilets when we built the house but four-season use would have been tricky.The pump's a bit too weak to drive a sprinkler the way I'd like, but I've since found out that the flow rate is hose dependent. I had no idea and assumed it must be power rating dependent. Anyway, if you use a fatter hose, you get a larger flow (see http://item.rakuten.co.jp/auc-build/10001062/ for example). I guess a fatter hose will give me more pressure at my sprinkler, but don't know how much because it'll have to go down to 15mm to connect up. There is also the problem of the cost of a long 25mm hose. It would be a very expensive experiment! I'll have to look for a manky old one on Yahoo Auctions.

On the upside, was this a record breaker for your solar panels? With the feed in tariff, you must be doing great off them now. Anytime your missus hassles you, just point up to them and say "Darling, my idea!".

Rod said...

Nice to see you again Stew.

I couldn't believe I'd been so stupid about the tap. Before I started pumping, I even performed a few pointy yosh checks like a train driver. But I missed the spigot obviously.

I planted a record number of tomatoes this year hoping to dry some, but it was too parched even for tomatoes, and like you, all my efforts went to establish ground cover.

That's interesting to know about the flow rate of the hose. It would be good to reduce pumping time. I was totally shocked by the price of hose though when I checked.

The solar panels are the only productive thing around here. The new tariff makes getting panels a total no-brainer, but people still build houses without them.

I looked in vain for your blog a couple of times recently. It would be nice to your pics.