WATER VS NO WATER. WATER COSTS LESS. WATER IS BETTER.
Wildfires are getting worse.
A lot of government and venture money is going to satellites and ground-based systems that detect and locate wildfires.
Money also goes to software companies who are modelling how fires will move with different weather conditions. NONE OF THE ABOVE CAN STOP FIRES.
Millions of government dollars are being spent for PASSIVE ACTIONS on the home.
The following is from a letter to me from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. It lists PASSIVE actions that should be done before water is sprayed on the house.
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(Also, the science and design/performance criteria behind external sprinkler systems used for wildfire defense is not well developed. There is much testing that needs to be conducted to determine their effectiveness during a high intensity wildfire.
The best mitigation actions that homeowners can implement are passive actions:
Class A fire rated roof
1/8” metal mesh vents
noncombustible siding
dual pane tempered glass windows
noncombustible 5 feet immediately surrounding the home
Active systems like external sprinkler systems are not a replacement for these passive systems. They need to be a mitigation action that homeowners can implement AFTER they have implemented all the passive mitigation.)
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The costs for the above new roof, siding, and windows is astronomical.
A low income person could not begin to pay for those costs.
I plan to do the testing “that needs to be conducted”.
For a small home, my spray system parts would cost $3000.
A larger home would have a parts cost of $5000.
The automatic spray system cost charged by existing home protection companies, for a larger home, would be $20,000.
Spray Nozzles Deliver 11 Times More Water, Where Necessary, Than than Rotary Sprinklers
Almost all of the companies that are currently selling automatic spray systems to protect a home from wildfires use ROTARY LAWN SPRINKLERS. My spray nozzles are very superior to their sprinklers. The figure shows a 40 foot semicircle that is the spray pattern of a Hunter I-25 rotary sprinkler delivering 32 gallons per minute (gpm) to protect a home from wildfire.
The area sprayed is 2500 sq ft.
The blue spray area is from 8 spray nozzles and is 15 gpm x 8 = 120 gpm,
so 120 gpm/32 gpm = 3.75
The spray nozzles deliver 3.75 times more water per minute.
The water in the blue area is the only water needed to protect the home. The area above the blue area is water that is wasted. The area under the semi-circle is 3 times the blue area. Therefore, the spray nozzles deliver
3 X 3.75 = 11 times the USEFUL water sprayed by the rotary sprinklers.
Rotary sprinklers waste a lot of water. Water must be supplied by expensive water tanks. Wasted water is wasted money.
Another issue is the lawn sprinklers are slowly moving the spray. The spray nozzles create a steady wall of water with no gaps.