[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Rainbarrels

[Lawrence Lile]

Hey, nobody's laughing, these are all good, practical points, with sound
explanations in physics.  A rain barrel is a low-pressure water system,
and the things you mention here - big diameter hoses, raising the
barrels up high, are exactly the things you'd to do deal with low
pressure, but details that most people would miss!  

 
 
Lawrence Lile, P.E., LEED AP

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Tim
Martens
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 8:19 AM
To: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Subject: [BULK] [Greenbuilding] Rainbarrels
Importance: Low

Hi David,  

I had a nursery once that relied on water from a well more than 600 feet
away. So, without doing any math (not an option for me), I just started
with one barrel and figured it out, trial and error.

There was practically no pressure from the garden hose from the house.
The advantage of this is that the water is air temperature when your
ready to water which reduces the stress on the plants. Also, if you
want to fertilize the plants you can brew an organic tea in the barrel
with fish emultion or nettle (the latter was used by a local organic
farmer- he said it was an excellent fertilizer) high in potassium? I
think.

This is what I learned.

1.The resulting pressure varies with height, not volume.  I had 4
barrels in a cluster with a fifth perched on top. The best pressure came
from the top barrel ; the bottom 4 were connected together with a 4 way
fitting and all worked together as a unit but still had less pressure
that diminished as they emptied.

2. I got better pressure at the sprinklers if the hose from the barrels
was inch and a half vs. three quarter. (I'm sure you guys who know why
this is are chuckling by now). 

3. This I found interesting (again, I can hear the snickering
beginning). If I filled up the top barrel with the value open at the
barrel, the water would run 13 feet down ( the tower was 13 feet high)
to the other valve and back up to the 4 barrels just beneath the top
one.

4. I was able to operate 20 shrub head sprinklers with this pressure
covering an area of approximately  480 square feet.

Tim Martens
_______________________________________________
Greenbuilding email list
List info:
http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding_listserv.repp.or
g
List email: Greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Managed by BuildingGreen, Inc. http://www.buildinggreen.com
      publisher of Environmental Building News and GreenSpec(r)
Hosted and archived by REPP / CREST http://www.crest.org