OpenSprinkler Forums Comments, Suggestions, Requests feature request: ice protection

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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  • #40046

    David
    Participant

    Hi,

    lets look in the future: the winter is coming with the cold temperatures that makes water to ice. and no pipe like ice 😉

    what about a ice protection? the OpenSprinkler stop waterring if the temp is lower then 4 degrees (C). And the app start a reminder: Hey, its getting cold. think of your garten-pipes.

    for more savety.

    #40064

    Samer
    Keymaster

    If we had push notification, I think this is a great idea. Otherwise, I doubt the user would open the app in the winter.

    Also, if the owner does not drain the lines of water, I believe letting the water flow is better than preventing any flow.

    #40096

    David
    Participant

    For normal home waterpipes its better with flow water in the winter as a ice protection.

    But the garden pipes for the sprinkler have normaly a dryout valve. To help do dry the pipe if there is no pressure on it.

    Looks like this: http://www.brianzaremba.de/DasProjekt/GartenFit/GartenFit_017.jpg

    The risk of broken pipes would be higher, if you watering your system under 0 degress.

    I know some days last year we have one day 10 degress. And at the next day we have to search for your cars under the snow. 🙂

    #42158

    skydivingcat
    Participant

    I would like this feature also, to eliminate slip hazards from ice on the sidewalk on those mornings it is below freezing.

    #42880

    nayr
    Participant

    also need this feature, here in the mile high city we still get spring snow that wont come close to freezing the ground and the sprinkler system, but it will blow sprinkler heads apart or at least make a giant icy mess if you attempt to use them.

    A temperature setpoint to not turn on the sprinklers would be good enough.

    our last spring snow storm the high of the day was 68 degrees @ midnight, then we got 2ft of heavy wet snow fall that was entirely melted within another 48h.. this was in late April when I already had turned on the system to help the grass seed I had planted.

    #42900

    ShawnHarte
    Participant

    Ice protection would be easy enough to implement using the current rain delay. It would be fair to assume no one would set a 255 hour delay so have the weather script send a delay of 255 if current temp is less than 33f or predicted to be less than 40. Then have the controller turn off all programs until the rain delay goes back to something less than 255. On the controller it would be easy enough to log a 255 hour delay as frost protection.

    Properly set up sprinklers should drain enough water to prevent frozen pipe breakage, for short duration freezing. Owners should be shutting their system down before major freeze events in winter. On a side note grass should not be watered in temps less than 45 F anyway, it prevents the grass from properly going into dormancy, and wastes water.

    #42935

    Ray
    Keymaster

    Most rain sensors also respond to freezing condition: they are often a rain/freeze combo sensor. When it drops below freezing temperature, the rain/freeze sensor clicks to prevent sprinkler controller from watering.

    #49831

    Bphillips921
    Participant

    Sorry to revive an old thread, but I have a similar idea. I plan to plumb a line from my air compressor (with a pressure regulator)
    into the irrigation system before the zone valves. If the temp got below 40F I’d love to have the controller shut a valve supplying the water, open a valve to supply compressed air, then open each zone for 30 seconds to blow the water out then close all valves. Ideally, the system could either reset itself when the temp reaches a certain point or it could be manually reset.

    Could this be done? That would be full proof freeze protection.

    #50034

    Ray
    Keymaster

    Hmm, this involves a number of steps and I don’t know if the stock firmware can do this. The only feature that relates to ‘open a valve then each zone for 30 seconds’ would be to set it as program 1, and set it to disabled, so it won’t normally run. But then have the sensor hooked up to OpenSprinkler and set the sensor type to Program Switch. So when the sensor is activate, it triggers program 1 to run.

    Another option is to perhaps use IFTTT — when temp goes below blah, trigger OpenSprinkler to perform certain actions. But there the temp is from some weather channel, not the temp at your house etc. (unless if you have a smart temperature sensor that can send data to IFTTT).

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OpenSprinkler Forums Comments, Suggestions, Requests feature request: ice protection