Thu Jul 29 09:06:43 PDT 2004

Well, the work has begun on putting in an in-ground sprinkler system. The project is much more involved than I originally thought. The first part of the process was a bit time consuming, but very worthwhile. Drawing up the layout of the yard to scale and then sending it to the big sprinkler companies to get their take on how to put in a sprinkler system. I sent in plans to Orbit via their little program, which is crude but sufficient and faxed in plans to Toro.

http://www.orbitonline.com/index.cfm/designSoftware.designPage1 http://www.toro.com/sprinklers/guides.html http://www.rainbird.com/diy/design/index.htm

I got back a giant PDF from Orbit for a 14 zone system. This was clearly overkill since a chunk of land 110x60ft really shouldn’t need 14 zones. And almost adding insult to injury, they put the valve boxes in really stupid spots. Toro mailed me a much more rational system with some really nice big color printouts. I’ll be implmenting something similar to Toro’s recommendation but with moving some of the valve boxes around a bit to make it easier. I skipped RainBird, and in retrospect I probably should have faxed them something to see what they came up with. But really I got the important part from Orbit and Toro, which was the placement and sizing of the sprinkler heads.

In parallel with that effort I investigated computer controllers for the sprinkler system. While the valves are just 24v and thus fairly easy to control with a relay or even a properly sized transistor, finding somebody who actually had a inexpensive solution to this was surprisingly difficult. I also wanted to keep things simple so I figured the easiest way to do that was to tie the sprinkler into an X10 system and drive it from my linux box since the linux box is on 24/7 and I’ve driven X10 from cron on the box before. That would enable easy control with lots of options (anything I can manage to code).

The only product that seems to be in active production is the rain8 product from WGL Design. And at a decent price point as well. They have a number of minor variations on it (basically firmware changes AFAIK). Even if I didn’t have a 24/7 box, it would be a nice solution. I purchased the rain8x version which allows multiple valvest to be on at once, a feature that I though would be good for the driplines at the time, but in retrospect, it’s probably overkill, one zone at a time would have been fine.

http://www.wgldesigns.com/rain8.html http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Home-Garden/WGL-Irrigation/Item/RAIN8BP1/

I also picked up a combination floodlight/motion detector for the backyard with X10 connections which should be faily nice for preventing the sprinklers from coming on while we are actually in the backyard. I suspect it wouldn’t really be much of a problem since I really only plan on watering late at night or early in the morning, but it can’t hurt to have some way of preventing unplesant events. So that set me back about $200 for nifty electronics from smarthomeusa (as opposed to smarthome). The only downside is that they didn’t include a RS232 cable to attach the PC105 to my PC. I have to make that myself, which is a minor annoyance since I’ve got all the parts already.

Michael got back to me with good information on trenchers: —————————————————————————– Hertz Equipment Rental (UPDATE – They shut down Hillsboro store and are now

operating out of Newberg only – oops!) 2130 NE Griffin Oaks St Hillsboro, OR 97124 – 2063 (503) 844-4933 M-Sat 7:30-5:30, closed Sunday

Walk-behind trencher 4" wide cut 0-2′ deep 100-300 feet an hour Its big! 700-900lbs, self-propelled machine+trailer: $131.50 for 24-hour period, 4hr min is $93.50 $10 less w/out trailer

Will instruct on use at pick-up time Breakage policy: "If it breaks, call us immediately someone will be dispatched to the field"

United Rentals Incorporated 4705 SE Witch Hazel Road, Hillsboro (503) 640-1235 M-F 7-5, Sat-Sun 8-4

Also: 14020 SW 72nd Ave, Tigard (503) 620-1235

Walk-behind trencher, 15hp $110 for 4hrs, $150 for the day $15 for a trailer Do not load in the back of van or truck $21 a day for insurance, 10% for damage

Need ODL and credit card, run for 2x rent, then credit difference —————————————————————————–

Earlier in the week I went down to the city of Hillsboro and got a pluming permit for ~$55. The public works building is on 1st and Main and the building department where you get permits and stuff is on the second floor in room 250. I learned that you can install a single backflow device, or you can use the above ground anti-siphon valves, but you have to be able to show that the valves are all 6 inches above the main and above any of the sprinkler heads. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to put the backflow device on the main so that I can put all the valves below ground and keep them nice and hidden. I think it will also make testing the backflow device much simpler.

The other tricky bit is that I need to get somebody to test out the backflow device before I get the system inspected by the city. Fortunately, I’m getting better at navigating the city and county websites to find this information. I also found out by reading the docs from the city that I need an electrical permit as well. I’ll go in a get that a bit later. The good links for the city are below, permits and backflow information:

http://www.ci.hillsboro.or.us/Building/ http://www.tvwd.org/backflow/backflow.htm

In the continuing saga, I went with Laurie, Michael and Dana to Home Depot to try and purchase all the items that I had figured out that I needed. Unfortunately it turned into 2 hours of frustration. It was like trying to write a program that you know exactly what it does but you are trying to write it in some assembly language that you’ve never used so you spend all your time going instruction-by-instruction through the instruction manual trying to find the right instructions to use. On the plus side, we did get most of the sprinklers, the pipe and some other items identified and purchased. They didn’t have a backflow device that was on the city’s list so during lunch today I went to Lowe’s and they did have a nice one and it looks like some of their stuff like the backflow device and the e underground boxes are cheeper at Lowe’s as well as a somewhat better layout for PVC adapter parts so they seem a little easier to find.