Cost of water for hot summer

i am hoping someone can give me an approx cost (or possible litres) for this.....

I have a property in Turkey so hot summers from may to end of October and very little rain during those months in fact probably no rain for 3 of those months.

Costs vary from country to country so possibly could somone give me an idea of how many litres of water it would take to keep a lawn green during the summer months, it is a course type grass and not to `bowling green` or `golf course` standard.

the lawn is approx 680 sq feet (75 sq metres)

I only use the propery for 5 weeks of the year and wondering about the costs of watering as opposed to getting some gravel chips put down, as it might be too expensive to maintain the lawn.

thanks

Reply to
Scudo
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Well, let's say you want to put down 3cm of water per week, and you're not loosing significant amounts to leakage, run-off (from poor draining soil), evaporation (you're not watering in the heat of the sun), or forgetting to turn off the water once enough is delivered, and, of course, a reasonably even distribution. 75 sq meters is 750,000 sq cm. Make it 3cm deep and you have 2,250,000 cubic cm per week. Multiply that times 20 weeks and you get

45,000,000 cubic cm, or 4,500 cubic meters. There are 1,000 liters in a cubic meter, so that would be 4,500,000 liters a season.
Reply to
Warren

I think there is something wrong with this calculation... a lawn that small would be a lake if you watered it with 4.5 million liters a season...

Reply to
Dan J.S.

You're right. I made a mistake converting back from cubic centimeters to cubic meters that resulted in a 100-fold mistake! (Mark your calendars, folks. I'm admitting to a mistake.)

Let's try it again then.

1 meter equals 100 centimeters. 1 square meter equals 100 centimeters x 100 centimeters, or 10,000 square centimeters.

Take that 10,000 square centimeters, and make it 3 centimeters deep, and you get 30,000 centimeters.

You don't just have 1 square meter, you have 75 of them, so 30,000 x 75 =

2,250,000 cubic centimeters.

There are May to October is 5 months. Go with 4 weeks per month, and that's

20 weeks, or 20 times you have to put down 2,250,000 cubic centimeters of water. That's a total of 45,000,000 cubic centimeters.

A cubic meter would be 100cm x 100cm x 100cm, or 1,000,000 cubic centimeters. So 45,000,000 cubic centimeters is 45 cubic meters. (This is where I made my mistake the first time.)

There are 1,000 liters in a cubic meter, so 45,000 liters is the correct answer.

To check that for reasonableness, let's try the English measurements. He stated 680 sq. feet, and I'll use 1.2 inches instead of just the standard 1 inch because that's closer to 3 cm.

There are 144 square inches in a square foot, so 680 square feet is 97,920 square inches. Make that 1.2 inches deep, and we have 117,504 cubic inches. Times 20 weeks we have 2,350,080 cubic inches for the season. There are about 231 cubic inches in a gallon, so that's about 10,174 gallons for the season.

Very roughly speaking, there are 4 liters in a gallon, so 10,174 x 4 =

40,696, which is in the same ballpark as the 45,000 liters we came up with in the other calculation, so now we've got some reasonable numbers.

To put this further in perspective, the area being spoken about, if it were square, would be about 26 x 26 feet. Over 10,000 gallons of water are needed for a 26 x 26 foot lawn. My water rate is $1.83/cubic foot. There are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot, so 2,350,080 cubic inches is 1,360 cubic feet. So if I had to water a 26 x 26 foot lawn every week for five months, it would cost me almost $2,500 a year.

Even without figuring in anything for fertilizer, gas (or electricity) for a lawn mower, or anything for the labor involved, that means a 26 x 26 foot lawn is a pretty darn expensive luxury unless you get lots of help from Mother Nature, or let it go dormant.

Thankfully where I live I only need to water about 1/3 that many weeks, with Mother Nature handling the rest. And I let my back and side lawns go dormant. That means I only water a small front lawn. I water with a timer, so I water before dawn so there's less evaporation, and the timer means I'll never forget to turn it off, either. So I don't have to spend anywhere near $2,500 a year, but I have neighbors who try to keep a large, monolithic lawn, and they complain about how their summer water bill is more than their winter gas bill.

Lawns are expensive. Very expensive if Mother Nature isn't chipping in a big share!

Reply to
Warren

Why Turkey?

What's it like there?

Safe?

Reply to
me

Why Turkey? Cheap prices compared to Uk

What's it like there? Warm climate & friendly race of people

Safe? one of the lowest crime rates of any country

Reply to
Scudo

If Russia attacked Turkey from the rear, would Greese help?

Reply to
G Henslee

Reply to
Scudo

OK

Reason I ask is.... the company I work for has been kicking around the idea of building a steel plating facility. And we were talking abt Turkey just yesterday

Then I came across your post abt owning land there and the timing was kind of freaky!!

Where at in Turkey?

Reply to
me

Can't help you right now but I'll put in an email to my BIL, the architect, in Izmir and ask him.

-- Tom

Reply to
- Tom -

Depends where you go. My British wife has family in Izmir and we visit frequently. We feel safer there than in big city America. Great food, nice folks, good bargains, and a beautiful seacoast.

-- Tom

Reply to
Tom R.

Thanks Tom would appreciate that. ##############

We have place near to Altinkum and compared to Scotland it is safer and cheaper. Once people from the UK get established I am sure it will slowly change for the worst.

Reply to
Scudo

I would imagine with cheap labour costs it could be an option, If you are starting a new company there you will to need check this out as I think there must be a turkish person involved in the ownership. Also there are strict rules with regard to work permits for foreigners they will only issue if a turk can`t do the work. All this probably applies more to small business as I am sure they would welcome the thought of major investment in their country. Land ownership has just recently been revised, its ok for villas etc but the amount of larger areas has been restricted due to countries buying large tracts (thousands of acres) this put the wind up them so they then restricted the amount.

Reply to
Scudo

We actually have some Turks coming to our plant in a few weeks to check out just such a joint adventure.

I assumed that Turkey was still a very dangerous place. Like Iraq.

I take it I'm mistaken abt that?

Again....I'm just a lowly employee here at work. Not involved in any decision making.

Was just coincidental I came across your post abt owning land in Turkey since we've had this talk around work abt a Turkish facility!!

I admit that I know VERY little abt Turkey. Hopefully I will learn more form this conversation.

Mind if I ask HOW you bought land there? Did you just happen to take a trip there and like it?

Reply to
me

Seems like they're not answering email right now. I'll get back to you when I get an answer.

Tom

Reply to
Tom R.

Well, I'm in Turkey and I asked my BIL about it. He said that he uses a "Uganda" strain of grass. It requires sunlight and little or no shade. He uses about a quarter inch of water every day on an area of ~100 sq. meters. You can do your own calculations and decide if it is affordable or not.

Tom

Reply to
Tom R.

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