is watering with hot water that bad???

Discussion in 'HortForum' started by redster, Apr 16, 2008.

  1. redster

    redster Active Member

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    simple question here, is watering with hot water all that bad?

    the reason id like to know is because the only place to fix up a water hose is straight off of my hot water heater. i have another hose but fixing this up would make my life so much easier, not having to drag a hose back and forth across the yard...

    anyway, if this helps, ill turn down the heater as warm as i can stand it, probably in the 100 105 range...louisiana summers are already 90 to 100 with heat indexes in the 110's so any hose left in the sun is that hot anyway.

    ill be watering a satsuma, some hot peppers, tomatos, and stuff like that and a few flowers when needed.


    thx

    red
     
  2. joclyn

    joclyn Rising Contributor

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    hot water is going to burn the roots plus, whatever rust has developed inside the heater will be in the water and that's bad for plants.

    how about getting a few gallon jugs of water at the store, using that up and then just refill the jugs from the kitchen tap?
     
  3. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    It's also a ridiculous waste of energy.
     
  4. redster

    redster Active Member

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    well i could use gallon jugs, but its probably less work to drag the hose...

    im not so worried about the energy, our gas bill is pretty cheap anyway, but i dont want to go burning roots or anything like that. i just find it hard to imagine its much worse than this hot LA sun. and i dont think i can get out of the rust problem, this is an old house, all the piping is metal.

    guess ill just be dragging the hose when i need to...
     
  5. joclyn

    joclyn Rising Contributor

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    it'll be less work using the gallon jugs.

    you'll be doing a lot of pulling up dead plants and then putting in new ones if you use the hot water.
     
  6. jimweed

    jimweed Active Member 10 Years

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    Hot water is not a good idea to use for watering plants. Might you be able to place a decorative barrel that you could fill with the hot water? Then just refill as needed? Just a thought.
     
  7. redster

    redster Active Member

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    i actually thought about a barrel of some kind. my grandmother used to have one that caught rain water runoff from her roof, it stayed full with as much rain as we get here...the only problem that i see, is that it will be a breeding ground for mosquitos

    and speaking of the rain we get, i probably wont be watering things that much, this was just an idea, cause im too lazy lol
     
  8. KarinL

    KarinL Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    As a person who waters using only either rainwater or recycled bathwater and does other things to save energy, I have to say it does give me the heebie-jeebies to think of someone heating water, then collecting it to cool it to use for watering the garden, but I also know that in the one summer I've spent in slightly warm, humid conditions I felt like a wet noodle and got almost nothing done, and so I would probably be considering the same thing if I lived where you do.

    I would just ensure that the water barrel is covered to prevent mosquitos from landing. I think a screen works - that's what's on top of the inflow on our rain barrel and I don't think mosquitos can get in there to lay eggs.
     
  9. lorax

    lorax Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    A nice fine mesh screen is what I've always used to keep skeeterbugs out of my water barrels. You certainly get enough rain in LA to consider it strongly.

    And it gives me more than a little of the heebidies to think of spending all those kilocals to heat water just to cool it down again. It gives me the jeebidies that go with the heebidies to think about giving plants hot water. Where I live, I generally don't have to collect rain, but the biome I was in 6 months ago demanded it.
     
  10. KarinL

    KarinL Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    And of course, if you can collect rainwater instead of heated water we'll all feel a lot better AND you won't have to worry about boiling your plants :-)
     
  11. Liz

    Liz Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    I would love any water right now. Restrictions prevent watering, The rain has forgotton to fall properly for months and I am into bucketing bath water too.

    Hot water ain't the way to go.

    Liz
     
  12. SUNRIZE

    SUNRIZE Active Member

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    Hi Red,

    I do sympathize with you trying to water using jugs..I went through that myself using milk jugs ..if you have a few plants that works ok but if you have a lot it can get tiresome of refilling and pouring not to mention achy back and shoulders when its all over and then in a couple of days you get to do it all over again… : ( .. You know you could use the tap from the washing machine (cold of course) or any of the other sinks…if you go down to one the hardware stores you can find an adaptor that will fit on the tap to the hose but this all depends on your sink tap if its one of those nice beautiful modern ones this probably wont work. Running a garden hose through the house is not pleasant. This is the type of hose I use.

    http://www.spraythegarden.co.uk/aq15.jpg

    I am lucky that I finally have an outside faucet.

    Good-luck…: )
     
  13. smivies

    smivies Active Member

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    I guess people's perception of what a 'cheap' gas bill varies? No matter how cheap you think your gas bill is, you'll find that watering with hot water will raise it substantially over what it is now & frankly, you'll have no more than a 3 or 4 month payback (probably less) if you just bite the bullet and get a plumber to install an appropriate hose connection (with cold water)
     
  14. SUNRIZE

    SUNRIZE Active Member

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    Yup.. smivies got the best idea its the most practical and financial in the long run… : )
     
  15. redster

    redster Active Member

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    well i agree with both of you...it seems when they built this house and installed the hot water heater, they only put a tee on the outflow going into the house. everything else is welded up solid and i cant do anything to it. if they had put a tee on the inflow i wouldnt have this problem, id have put in a faucet myself. but as the case may be, the only other faucet i got is in the front yard, and im already tired of lugging the hose around cars, the carport and everything else in the way...

    so im taking all the advise i guess, no hot water, ill start looking for a barrel, and maybe eventually pay a plumber to come do the job right

    i dont want to pick up my gas bill either, this is our first year in this house, and im pleasantly surprised how cheap our bills were this winter...our gas bill normally runs 30 went up to 50 and our electric which in august was our high at 177 i believe, was 27 in february. cant beat that in my book

    and just wondering, do you guys even get skeeters up there in canada??? id imagine those winters wipe out most of them, cold as it gets. how long is the growing season for yall?

    thx for the help

    red
     
  16. lorax

    lorax Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    Oh yes, we get them in thick, buzzing, people-devouring clouds for about three months. We also get something called Blackfly, which are infinitely worse.

    Growing season varies depending on where you are; I used to live in Northern Alberta where the season was just a bit more than 4 months. Further south I imagine they get closer to 6 months. Our weather, for large swaths of the country, compares to what you Yankees get in the border states (Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, etc) or even Colorado and Nebraska.

    Of course, our North is infinitely colder, but we can't avoid the skeeters unless we want to live in, oh, Tuktoyuktuk or Aleuit (well north of 60). Which really really really sucks, let me tell you, especially in the wintertime. The towns I just mentioned get around 48 days of non-winter.

    And as for lugging hoses about, what's wrong with installing a reglated y-junction in your front yard, effectively splitting your main hose so that the hose you run to the back doesn't have to be quite so long or go quite so far?
     
  17. redster

    redster Active Member

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    well we get the skeeters horribly for about 6 months and just around us for 9/10 months, which is about the same as our effective growing season. it all depends on when the first freeze comes through, sometimes december other years january. its great for growing but i really love the winters here, it cant get cold enough for me to wear a jacket. id almost be tempted to move to alaska.

    i hope you dont go calling all americans yankees lol, you might offend someone one day. for the record im a coonass :)

    and splitting at the front hose would leave either the pipe or the hose running across our driveway permenantly, not the best of ideas.

    red
     
  18. lorax

    lorax Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    Ah then. Don't split the hose if you might be running it over with your vehicle.

    And sorry about the Yankee thing; I'm a Canadian by birth, but down here in Ecuador everybody from North of Mexico is American, and I'm getting sick of being called a Gringa. I was taking it out on you and that's not fair.

    And unless you really lurve snow and people-devouring clouds of skeeters in the summertime, don't move to Alaska.
     
  19. Liz

    Liz Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Re the hoses, I was going to suggest my solution. Use the main cold tap and a length of hose to a convenient location then have pieces that run to the areas you need to water. I just have a platic connector but you might be able to have a tap system that as you finish with one area turn the tap on the main line and redirect the flow to the next length and so on. You might even be able to use the black plastic piping for some of the distance or to create the central hub with diverting taps. I use that method in my paddocks as I only have one main cold water tap there. I just ran the PVCpipe along the fence lines and added flexable hose lengths to the end for water troughs and tree watering The taps made for the poly pipe did the diversions over the whole five acres. This should not require a plumber unless you have some sort of town rules??

    Liz
     
  20. lorax

    lorax Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    I totally forgot about that, Liz - it's how I get water to my citrus!
     
  21. redster

    redster Active Member

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    it would still be easier to plug in from the cold on the water heater, theres not enough pipe coming out the ground on the main before heading into the house.

    and i was just kidding lorax...nothing would probably offend me unless it was the truth. theres nothing wrong with a little humor now and then lol

    and i find it hard to believe that alaska can beat south louisiana in the skeeter department...you realize in august its like 100 degrees 200% humidity, and we get rain about 20 days out the month...theres water everywhere for them bastards to lay eggs. they call it dog days for a reason


    red
     
  22. Liz

    Liz Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Sheesh I thought our bushflies were bad, oh and the blowies (blowfly) but sounds like we have a mild problem compared to you lot. Ours don't usually bite but they do cling hence the great Australian salute. I do believe the mosquitoes are as big as bombers up north. Are the midges in Scotland by Loch Ness the same as your blackflies. I believe they have a version in New Zealand too.

    Liz
     
  23. KarinL

    KarinL Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    If you're running from the cold feed TO to the water heater then we're not actually talking about hot water, are we?

    Here on the Canadian west coast the climate is pretty mild, zone 8 mostly; we hardly qualify as having a "Canadian" winter. We do get mosquitos. And yeah, isn't that always annoying, when you do your best to eliminate standing water that they can land in on your own property and then see all sorts of opportunities left for them everywhere else.
     
  24. Sphinxie

    Sphinxie Member

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    Someone somewhere must sell some hard thing that would cover a hose and protect it from car wheels, similar to what construction sites use.
     
  25. lorax

    lorax Rising Contributor 10 Years

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    They do, and it's expensive stuff. I've had to buy it as cable protector for live concerts before, and it costs more than the cable itself.
     

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