Lights! Water! Action!

June 26, 2001 - Water. It's the basic element of life. It makes up about 70 percent of our Earth, and it's what allows for life to exist on our home planet. Seventy percent translates to about 340 million cubic miles of water in all. Of this figure, 97 percent of that is ocean. But there's also water in the air, water in our bodies, and water in the foods we eat. And as much water as there is above the surface of the Earth, there's even more water stored inside the Earth. "Water water everywhere" as the old saying goes.  Yet with all this water, some parts of the country are experiencing a water shortage?

George Tuma is a water lover. In his garden he has fountains and waterfalls, and an aquarium where he keeps fish, and a swimming pool with chlorinated water where he and his family can immerse themselves. He's also got a lawn with which he uses water through a sprinkler system to keep up.

Of course with the recent shortage of water, George has found ActiveHome an invaluable aid to helping him do his part with conservation. "In order to keep my pool clean and save energy," George says, "the pump is running only for three hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays." To run those pumps, George has his system set up in ActiveHome with macros so that those pumps and heaters are only working for three hours on those specific days.

From there George says, "An appliance module turns on a separate small pump which circulates the water through solar collectors as long as the sun shines (and in winter the appliance module turns on a gas heater.)"

George also has five appliance modules that control the sprinklers on his lawn. Now he can water his lawn just as much as the lawn needs it, and not a moment more. He saves water, he saves energy, and he doesn't have to run out there all the time fussing with his sprinkler system.

Then there are the fountains and waterfall. George has his fountains and waterfall pumps on other appliance modules, with another set of ActiveHome macros so that they run during the day, and are turned off in the evening, again saving on those energy costs.

"It's all very efficient as far as water use goes," he says. And Mother Nature herself couldn't be this meticulous. George is very thankful that he can still play in the water.

Then of course, there's one more thing that George finds very helpful with his ActiveHome Appliance Module. It has to do with that all important water beverage. The process of transforming water to coffee every morning so that George can face the day. Oh yeah, ActiveHome does that for George as well.

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