Rural Fire Hose System - Watering Orchard

Rural Fire Hose System - Watering Orchard

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Really the uses here are endless. But my goal is to rig up a way to be able to put down some serious water for fire control before lighting up some big brush piles. I'm in a rural area, and a forested area. I have an obligation to have a fire suppression plan in place before lighting the piles. But I found I can also use it to rapidly water my orchard too!

The concept is very simple. The pump is designed to move a lot of volume, at relatively low pressure. By reducing the area of the flow, from 3" to 1.5", the velocity of the water should double. But really I'm reducing the area down to 1" or even less (I bought a 3/4 nozzle as a test). The relationship of flow rate is Q=VxA so you can figure it up however you want.

This pump is rated at 15,000 gph at 0 psi drop. Say I lose a few psi, and only get 10,000 gph. That's 0.37 CF/sec, which through a 3" hose should be 7.4 ft/sec velocity. If I reduce that to 1", that velocity should triple, to over 22 ft/sec.

Hmmm...calculator says it'll only fly 15'. Yet I got 40' here. Aha! That's because it's less than an inch of actual cross sectional flow. This nozzle reduces it down to a bunch of slots. Anyway, you get the point. If I take the effective flow down to 1 square inch, and flow rate stays the same, it should yield 74 ft/sec initial velocity and fly about 50' at an initial departure angle of 10 deg. Oh! If I turn that angle up to 45 deg I get 170!

OK, I geeked out a bit. But this really is fun stuff folks!