Irrigation System

The RLF irrigation system grew organically, which is another way of saying haphazardly. The grounds (about 2.5 acres) had been put down to avocados perhaps 20 years ago and the trees had been allowed to run riot and were generally in bad shape. They had to come out and lawns, paddocks, and a pasture put in along with new perimeter borders of ficus and eucalyptus. Thus began the saga of irrigating the gardens.

I'll spare you a long story of how we put in irrigation, changed it, changed it again, and then changed it yet again. Eventually however one thing became clear: If you have a large garden with many watering zones timers are OK but not very flexible and certainly not the kind of system a techie wants. Nope, only one thing would do: Computer control. See my Network World Gearhead column for the how's and why's.

I plan to write up a more detailed description of what I learned from this exercise. In the meantime, here's a view of one of the controller enclosure installations.

(Click on pictures for enlargements in popup windows)

It is a truism that as systems get larger their complexity grows exponentially. For an irrigation system, tracking which wire goes to which valve and the details of which X-10 codes control which valve requires that you keep detailed notes and charts. Here's my X-10 configuration chart for the entire irrigation system; the controllers in the picture above (controllers 1, 2, and 3) are in Controller Enclosure 1 in the barn.

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