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I would really be interested in seeing a source for that. That is three times the amount of water my household uses in a month (granted I dont water my entire l

I would really be interested in seeing a source for that. That is three times the amount of water my household uses in a month (granted I dont water my entire lawn).

cratermoon 4y ago
Rule of thumb is 1 inch of water, which works out to 623 gallons per 1,000 square feet. In the United States, residential lawns average 10,871 square feet[1]. 10,871 / 1000 * 623 = 6772.633 1 https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/average-yard-size-by-state/ https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/average-yard-size-by-state/
- eesmith 4y ago
  That's 1 inch of water per week. Most people don't live in a desert, so some of that 1 inch of water comes from rain. That is, assume each watering uses 1 inch and the watering is one per week, then: 6772 gal / week * 52 weeks = 352,000 gallons per year. The average American family uses about 300 gallons of water per day at home, says https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/our_water/water_use_today.html https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/our_wa... 300 gal/day * 365.25 days / year = 110,000 gallon per year which means the average family isn't putting 1" of water on their 10K sq ft lawn per week. Furthermore, the same source says "Nationally, outdoor water use accounts for 30 percent of household use", so that should be more like 33,000 gal / year on outdoor use. It therefore seems like your estimate is off by quite a bit. As an example adjustment for rain. Boston gets 3-4 inches of rain per month, so that's about 0.5 inches of extra watering needed per month, or 0.125 inches per week, or 1/8th of your estimate.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Fair enough. But to the point of the original story: if electric cars become ubiquitous, firefighters are going to need to start using something besides plain water for car fire. Battery fires are Class B fires, and water isn't great for them. Strictly speaking, ICE car fires are Class B if the fuel and oil are taken into account. I wonder if the battery and associated components carry enough electricity to be considered "energized electrical equipment", which puts the fire into Class C territory. In any case, I think a fully-equipped fire response for car fires is going to get more complicated.

I would really be interested in seeing a source for that. That is three times the amount of water my household uses in a month (granted I dont water my entire lawn).

cratermoon 4y ago

Rule of thumb is 1 inch of water, which works out to 623 gallons per 1,000 square feet. In the United States, residential lawns average 10,871 square feet[1]. 10,871 / 1000 * 623 = 6772.633 1 https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/average-yard-size-by-state/ https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/average-yard-size-by-state/

eesmith 4y ago
That's 1 inch of water per week. Most people don't live in a desert, so some of that 1 inch of water comes from rain. That is, assume each watering uses 1 inch and the watering is one per week, then: 6772 gal / week * 52 weeks = 352,000 gallons per year. The average American family uses about 300 gallons of water per day at home, says https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/our_water/water_use_today.html https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/our_wa... 300 gal/day * 365.25 days / year = 110,000 gallon per year which means the average family isn't putting 1" of water on their 10K sq ft lawn per week. Furthermore, the same source says "Nationally, outdoor water use accounts for 30 percent of household use", so that should be more like 33,000 gal / year on outdoor use. It therefore seems like your estimate is off by quite a bit. As an example adjustment for rain. Boston gets 3-4 inches of rain per month, so that's about 0.5 inches of extra watering needed per month, or 0.125 inches per week, or 1/8th of your estimate.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Fair enough. But to the point of the original story: if electric cars become ubiquitous, firefighters are going to need to start using something besides plain water for car fire. Battery fires are Class B fires, and water isn't great for them. Strictly speaking, ICE car fires are Class B if the fuel and oil are taken into account. I wonder if the battery and associated components carry enough electricity to be considered "energized electrical equipment", which puts the fire into Class C territory. In any case, I think a fully-equipped fire response for car fires is going to get more complicated.