186 KWH pumping 72K gallons of water...

[UncleDave]

Makes for a nicely greening lawn.

The sprinkler system give me hours of irrigation in each respective chunk and the " orchard".

Napkin math says

81 hours @ 15 GPM 72,900 gallons
2.3 KWH to pump to upper field x 186KWH @ .41 76.26
Irrigation water 750 for 6 month or 24 weeks is 31.25 a week x 5 or 156.25 of water cost.

Heres the last 5 week or so.

 

[JHZR2]

It is nicely greening, but wow…. That’s a lot.

Doesn’t CA have water problems?

Is there a less water intensive ground cover?

Seems like a big price to pay for grass in an area inhospitable to it.

 

[UncleDave]

It is nicely greening, but wow…. That’s a lot.

Doesn’t CA have water problems?

Is there a less water intensive ground cover?

Seems like a big price to pay for grass in an area inhospitable to it.

Oh yeah it takes a lot of water.

During seeding I have to use more water, when the grass gets established I'll be able to pull back quite a bit.

Certain areas in Ca. have water problems other areas do not.

I'm up North where it is abundant and If i dont put it somewhere there is a good chance it will just run out into the ocean anyway.
I'm using low consumption blends of grass so it's about as ideal as you can get as ground cover.

The main goal of the project is to keep the ground from becoming fuel and keep it from being a fire hazard during an ember shower.
You may have read we've had awful fires and thats expected to continue, some have come close enough for us to get evacuation warnings.

Secondarily is to keep the orchard and plants fed - they get drip lines.

 

[JHZR2]

Oh yeah it takes a lot of water.

During seeding I have to use more water, when the grass gets established I'll be able to pull back quite a bit.

Certain areas in Ca. have water problems other areas do not.

I'm up North where it is abundant and If i dont put it somewhere there is a good chance it will just run out into the ocean anyway.
I'm using low consumption blends of grass so it's about as ideal as you can get as ground cover.

The main goal of the project is to keep the ground from becoming fuel and keep it from being a fire hazard during an ember shower.
You may have read we've had awful fires and thats expected to continue, some have come close enough for us to get evacuation warnings.

Secondarily is to keep the orchard and plants fed - they get drip lines.

What blend are you using? I need to look into low consumption grass. I also blend microclover into our yard.

What are you growing in the orchard?

Do you recommend these drip lines versus soaker hose? My wife is working to ensure something is flowering at all times in our yard, and has been really successful. But august is still pretty rough on many of our flowering plants.

 

[oil pan 4]

How deep is your well?

 

[UncleDave]

What blend are you using? I need to look into low consumption grass. I also blend microclover into our yard.

What are you growing in the orchard?

Do you recommend these drip lines versus soaker hose? My wife is working to ensure something is flowering at all times in our yard, and has been really successful. But august is still pretty rough on many of our flowering plants.

I'll get the mix from the landscaper and let you know.

I prefer a drip line as I can tune it better than a soaker hose.
I can add or pull back on the amount by changing the orifice number and size.

Front yard is all desert scape rock and low water plants.

Same here, August is basically 100 or more every day.

Orchard, is apples, peaches, nectarines, sweet cherries, (adding sour cherries, a honeycrsip apple tree, and grapes)
We have plum trees in the lower .5 acre.

 

[UncleDave]

How deep is your well?

Well is less than 100 feet.

The water source for irrigation is not the well though.

The water source comes from a box cut into the berm of a nearby stream and piped to my land.

My 1.5 Acre parcel has an allotment for " half a miners inch" .

It works out to about 8000 (varies) gallons a day flowing onto my property. I dont use all that but thats my allotment.

This is gravity fed and variable in nature depending on upstream use, natural flow gives me about 30 LB or pressure and I can run up two 2 sprinklers anywhere via hose without a pump. All the buried sprinklers are pumped.

I pay a flat rate of 750 for the "half inch" of water from April15-Oct15

 

[OVERKILL]

Well is less than 100 feet.

The water source for irrigation is not the well though.

The water source comes from a box cut into the berm of a nearby stream and piped to my land

My 1.5 Acre parcel has an allotment for " half a miners inch" .

It works out to about 8700 gallons a day flowing onto my property. I dont use all that but thats my allotment.

I pay a flat rate of 750 for the half inch of water from April15-Oct15

We pay $1.5234/cubic meter for city water. Your 72,000 gallons is 273 cubic meters, so it would cost $415.89

 

[UncleDave]

We pay $1.5234/cubic meter for city water. Your 72,000 gallons is 273 cubic meters, so it would cost $415.89

Thats pretty close to what I paid in LA.
They measure it in HCF (hundred cubic feet) and you get escalating tiers based on usage.

When you say "city water" thats potable treated water delivered at what 60 + psi ? - is the sewer fee added in ?

 

[OVERKILL]

Thats pretty close to what I paid in LA.
They measure it in HCF (hundred cubic feet) and you get escalating tiers based on usage.

When you say "city water" thats potable treated water delivered at what 60 + psi ? - is the sewer fee added in ?

Correct. It's not tiered, but the sewage is charged at almost the same rate as the water, so if you used $106 in water, your total bill would be like $210.

 

[UncleDave]

JHZR2 Grass blend is quite a variety.

Most of these are considered "extremely drought tolerant"

"Improved Irrigated Horse Blend"
Bravado Tall Fescule
Barduke Kentucky Bluegrass
White Dutch Clover.

Wife unit worked with guy to pick the blends, and walked it with a backpack spreader.

We make sure it's edible for most of our occasional 4 legged guests.
We've had to provide friends, horses, goats, sheep, the occasional chickens and milk cow, with fire refuge and also have a shaded habitat and natural rock formations for the goats to climb on.

 

[wpod]

To water our 8 acres of pasture via the rain bird specs for the sprimklers [we have a 20 horse power multiple stage pump with Rainbird inpact sprinklers flowing 6+ gallons per minute per sprinkler running 44 sprinklers moved 3 times [ wheel lines] and run for 10 hours per move works out to be about 500,000 gallons for the 30 hours it takes to water the field.

 

[UncleDave]

To water our 8 acres of pasture via the rain bird specs for the sprimklers [we have a 20 horse power multiple stage pump with Rainbird inpact sprinklers flowing 6+ gallons per minute per sprinkler running 44 sprinklers moved 3 times [ wheel lines] and run for 10 hours per move works out to be about 500,000 gallons for the 30 hours it takes to water the field.

Ag sprinklers like that are awesome.

Back in Indiana we moved the water OFF our land with tractor engined pumps.

Whats your water source and what power does the pump run on?

 

[wpod]

Ag sprinklers like that are awesome.

Back in Indiana we moved the water OFF our land with tractor engined pumps.

Whats your water source and what power does the pump run on?

We have 480 volts and get our water from a tail water ditch from all the Dairies fields around us,

 

[UncleDave]

We have 480 volts and get our water from a tail water ditch from all the Dairies fields around us,

clearly the energy isn't free, but do you pay for that water or do you just drop a skimmer in the ditch and go to town? How does that work there?

 

[wpod]

U

clearly the energy isn't free, but do you pay for that water or do you just drop a skimmer in the ditch and go to town? How does that work there?

We have a culvert at the bottom of the ditch that leads to a sump where the pump is installed. The costs shared for the electricity [ 2 properties]is about a $1000.00 per year for the electricity. The water costs are per property and that costs me for 5 acres of water close to $600.00 All the ag waters seems to be billed using the same formula everywhere. I had 38 Acres of pasture in Anderson California close to the Sacramento and the water billing / allocations were similar.

 

[thastinger]

So that's what all those solar panels provide power to during the daytime...sprinkler heads and water pumps

 

[UncleDave]

So that's what all those solar panels provide power to during the daytime...sprinkler heads and water pumps

In the case of California something like 30% of all electricity generated goes toward moving water.

In the case of my house I'll be able to cover the pump runs off my roof,
I'm guessing I'll use about a megawatt a year pumping water when it all said done and established.

Because of improvements made to eth rood and insulation I was able lower my summertime load dramatically and I ended up my first year with about 3MW of net exported energy so I have a bit of overhead.

This will ultimately get consumed by an EV of some sort at some point in time.

 

[IndyIan]

So that's what all those solar panels provide power to during the daytime...sprinkler heads and water pumps

I guess you'd have to do a cost analysis for the price of electricity vs water, as usually for Ag purposes, you would try to irrigate at night, so you don't lose a lot of it. Even my buddy with free water and a diesel pump waters at night, I assume to save on fuel as he might need to pump like 30-50% more water, depending on the day?

 

[UncleDave]

I guess you'd have to do a cost analysis for the price of electricity vs water, as usually for Ag purposes, you would try to irrigate at night, so you don't lose a lot of it. Even my buddy with free water and a diesel pump waters at night, I assume to save on fuel as he might need to pump like 30-50% more water, depending on the day?

I pump mostly at night to avoid evaporation.