Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
She's catching up!!!!
Last week I made the comment of wondering how much snow we will get when Mother Nature decides to catch up.
Well.......she's catching up very quickly at this point. We are in the middle of a lake effect snow band and pretty hefty winds are making life "fun" right now.
On a side note, I have added a poll to the right in hopes of getting an idea of who is visiting us. Please take a moment to click on the option that best describes the reason you are visiting. Thank you.
Well.......she's catching up very quickly at this point. We are in the middle of a lake effect snow band and pretty hefty winds are making life "fun" right now.
On a side note, I have added a poll to the right in hopes of getting an idea of who is visiting us. Please take a moment to click on the option that best describes the reason you are visiting. Thank you.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Good News!!!
We have been officially approved for an new irrigation pumping station to replace our current inefficient, unreliable and undersized pumps. We will begin with the site work asap and the new pumps will arrive in early April ready to do their thing.
The old pumps were installed well before we had all 36 holes and the fully irrigated Learning Center and operating at 600 gpm. At this capacity, it would take 12 hours or better if a heavy irrigating. The new pumps will provide 1200 gpm and will almost cut this time in half, the limiting factor being the pipe in the ground and not the pumps.
The new pumps are variable frequency drive (VFD) vertical turbine versus our current setup of centrifugal pumps. The advantage here is twofold. 1) The vertical turbines will never lose prime like the centrifugal, and 2) vertical turbines are more energy efficient that centrifugals to begin with, but are even more so with the VFD controls. What this means is that even though we have doubled the output of the station, we will have a very small increase in electrical requirements during the summer, if any. The VFDs are also much easier on the piping in the ground and will lead to many fewer leaks of the course of the season. Keep in mind that we will always have leaks, but they will be minimized with the VFD.
I am certainly excited about this approval and look forward to being able to better control the water from here on out.
The old pumps were installed well before we had all 36 holes and the fully irrigated Learning Center and operating at 600 gpm. At this capacity, it would take 12 hours or better if a heavy irrigating. The new pumps will provide 1200 gpm and will almost cut this time in half, the limiting factor being the pipe in the ground and not the pumps.
The new pumps are variable frequency drive (VFD) vertical turbine versus our current setup of centrifugal pumps. The advantage here is twofold. 1) The vertical turbines will never lose prime like the centrifugal, and 2) vertical turbines are more energy efficient that centrifugals to begin with, but are even more so with the VFD controls. What this means is that even though we have doubled the output of the station, we will have a very small increase in electrical requirements during the summer, if any. The VFDs are also much easier on the piping in the ground and will lead to many fewer leaks of the course of the season. Keep in mind that we will always have leaks, but they will be minimized with the VFD.
I am certainly excited about this approval and look forward to being able to better control the water from here on out.
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