If you have a 5 gallon bucket and know how large the area is that needs to be watered, it's not too hard to get a time that will accomplish your goals. First, time how long it takes for your hose to fill up a 5 gallon bucket. This gives you the rate at which your irrigation system puts out water. Then, do the math contained in #1 and you're all set. "How Much Water - If nature has not supplied water as rain applying approximately 1 inch of water is a general rule of thumb. This will give deep penetration of the soil to a depth of six to eight inches. One inch of water or rain is equivalent to 623 gallons per 1000 sq. ft. Water should be applied no faster than the soil is able to absorb it. If water begins to run off before one inch is applied, stop sprinkling until it is absorbed and then resume. How long will applying 1 inch of water take? This depends on the size hose, pressure and type of sprinkler being used. There are several methods for determining how much your are applying. 1. Do The Math - Find the gallons per minute (GPM) flow rate of the sprinkler being used from the package of the manufacturer. Multiply the square footage to be watered by .62 gallons or 1 inch of water per square foot. Example: 1000 sq. ft. x .62 gal. = 620 gallons. This tells you how many gallons of water you need to apply to the lawn. Divide that number the GPM of your sprinkler and you can figure how many minutes to water. 2. Collect The Water - Place a cup or glass in the middle of the area covered by your sprinkler, turn water on and watch the time. Measure water in the cup until 1 inch is collected. This is the time you need to sprinkle. The best accuracy is obtained if you use several containers at different places in the sprinkler�s coverage pattern and average the results. 3. Buy A Flow Timer - Often called water timers, these units actually measure water flow. They are calibrated in 100 gallons and can be set from 100 to 1500 gallons to give you the water necessary for the square footage covered by the sprinkler. Use the formula in #1 to figure the gallons needed. 4. Test Soil - Test the soil 6" or more below the surface to make sure it is dry. Turn on your sprinkler and periodically test the soil 6" down until the water has penetrated to that depth. Keep track of how long it took and use that as the time you need to water. Here is a link that might be useful: Watering Needs

Hi library girl, We closed on the house on Thursday, so we haven't had a lot of experience with the water. However, I can tell you this. With no softener (just the UV filter and a new pressure/holding tank) the water is pretty darn good, from my point of view. The dishwasher in the house is older than me, I'm fairly certain, and there aren't any signs of rust on the inside. The glasses come out a bit cloudy though, but I can live with that. We've run a load of laundry and the whites didn't come out dingy, so I was pleased with that. Also, it doesn't taste half bad, either. I prefer the taste of harder water (I suppose its the higher mineral content) over softer water anyhow. The hot water does smell a little irony out of the tap, and we haven't tried to cook with it yet. I'm suspecting the hot water is a little off (in part, at least) to the water heater nearing the end of its useful life and never having the anode rod changed. Our UV filter is a Trojan, but that is all that I remember. I'll get you some info on oursIt was recommended to us because we have an older dug well with a cement casing and cement cap. Its not exactly weather tight, and the well company that inspected it said that the casing was in good shape and they didn't see any cracks. However, an earthworm may end up in there and there is your coliform. The seller paid for it, but it wasn't terribly expensive, and the bulb usually lasts about a year. As lurker said above, the hard water is a little harder on it and will probably shorten its life some. In our case, I was worried about the well being re-contaminated after it was chlorinated, as its a shallow well operating mostly off ground water, so at the very least, I wanted to take the possibility of bacteria out of the equation. We're still going to have our water tested regularly, but the UV filter provides us a good amount of peace of mind.

Thanks, Alice; much appreciated. You probably saw in my post on possibly drilling a new well that we've decided to stick with the existing well for a year or two, assuming it recovers somewhat after the nearby reservoir is filled again. So, we will definitely address the hardness issue in the next month or so. I do check the pH of both the pool and spa regularly using litmus paper, as well as the raw water when I periodically re-fill the spa. The lowest I ever saw of the raw water was 8.4, and is usually in the nines. I suspect that either the lowered water table at the moment has an effect on pH, or that the sample was stale by the time they analyzed it, even though I packed it in a cooler. The lab is about 60 miles away (like everything else.....). And, sure enough, the well water is about 10 degrees warmer than normal at the moment! That really suprised me. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks as the table comes up. We do have a cheap dual sediment filter in place, which at least keeps the big chunks out of the house. I generally replace them about every 2 months, and they are usually rusty in color, I'm sure from the rusting well casing. But recently they are always brown and full of fine silt, consistent with our clay-based soil. We'll likely add another set or two before putting in the softener. As far as hydrology reports, I haven't found any real local. According to a professor who has studied the area, we have some of the most intricate and complex aquifer systems in the world, but where I am, near the major creek that drains the whole region, there is almost universal flow through our property, meaning we'll hit water no matter where we drill. So, now it's time to design a softener system that will work. Not too many local resources around here (that 60 miles to anywhere thing), so I'm not sure where to start. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks again.

alisande, I'll have to admit, as the new information comes to light, it does raise some questions in my thinking. However, from what you describe so far, I suspect you are ok for the moment. Your original problem seems to have been air in the system as the others described. However, and only going by your description and no technical data, it did appear to take more time to bring the water to a temperature you were satisfied with. After you readjusted the thermostat it appeared to be more to your liking. My conclusion is, your cousin didn't run the water temperature as high as you do. Maybe he has kids he doesn't want to scald themselves, maybe it was to save energy, whatever his reasons. A 50 gallon tank is a pretty good sized tank for 1 person and I think if you kept the temp around 115-120 degrees, you wouldn't run out of hot water if everything is working fine. But again, there are good reasons to run the temp. higher. My advice at this point pretty much follows your line of thinking. If everything is to your satisfaction, there's nothing to fix. Let us know if anything new develops, the more information you can give up front, the better answers you will get. I think most of the folks here gave you enough info. that you know several areas to look or have someone to look at to do some trouble shooting before blowing the whistle. You'll eventually be the hot water expert in your area. As for Iris, there are 3 reasons for the tag. Making a living these days requires a job and as many hustles as one can handle. 1-I grow approx. 3 acres of rare types of Bearded Iris. Many get sold, many get processed for the perfume industry and many get processed as medicinal Oris Root. Motion photography and filming is another area of endeavor. Someone touched on another area in one of the forums so I figured they must have known me. Now of course there is no way for me to spend full time in all these areas and my profession also so others now actually work them. I just usually pi$$ them off from time to time when I come around and start playing with stuff since to me, these are hobbies.