28 August 2008

Technology - Ain't it Grand?

Ok, the SandCastle just took a direct hit by one of the strongest set of thunderstorm cells I've ever seen. Thunder was continuous and sounded more like a jet engine. Power is out all over town. Local news reports we received ~1.5 inches of rain in about 30 minutes. The streets are flooded, as is my yard. No word yet on any trees felled in the neighborhood. And Round 3 is on the way.

And across the street, the neighbor's sprinklers are on making sure the grass gets a good dose!

3 comments:

GunGeek said...

You can get water sensors for your sprinkler system that suspend the schedule for a period of time whenever it gets X amount of rain. I've heard that in some drought prone places they are required by law.

New tech trumps old tech.

danno said...

I'm sure your right such sensors are available. Because you mentioned it, I took a look at HD to see what was available...

Nada!

http://tinyurl.com/5webbl

GunGeek said...

You just needed to look some more...

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100340933&N=10000003+90401+502214

Will show you the Toro ECXTRA system, which lists a feature called "Rain Delay", which has two methods. One is using your PC to tell it to stop watering for X days because it rained. The other requires a rain sensor:

http://www.toro.com/sprinklers/timers/ecxtra/53765.html

The only reason I know some people had come up with these is that my brother was working a rain sensing delay system when at least one other company came out with it and he gave up his plans.