Fill swimming pool, but don’t wash car?

Tue, 04/29/2008 - 2:57pm
By: Letters to the ...

It’s difficult to believe that a Fayette County homeowner is allowed to fill his/her swimming pool without any restrictions whatsoever, while one cannot wash his/her vehicle.

Also, one may water his/her lawn between the hours of midnight to 10 a.m. on designated days, but must use a hand-held sprayer and is allowed only 25 minutes of watering during this time period.

Assume the size of a swimming pool is 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and has an average depth of 5 feet. It would take 29,920 gallons of water to fill it.

Computations are as follows: 40 ft. x 20 ft. x 5 ft. = 4,000 cubic feet. There are approximately 7.48 gallons in one cubic foot of water. 4,000 cubic ft. times 7.48 gallons per cubic ft. = 29,290 gallons of water.

Last year, our household used about 7,300 gallons of water per month, which included outside watering of a food garden. Normally, we use less than 6,000 gallons per month for inside household use.

Thus, the amount of water needed to fill a pool of the above dimensions is about four times more than our overall household usage was for one month last year.

And one cannot wash a vehicle or use sprinklers. How nutty is this? Give me a break!

A. Russell

Fayetteville, Ga.

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kjam's picture
Submitted by kjam on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 10:46pm.

I would agree! I am a homeowner who has a pool, and luckily with the rains we had this past weekend brought it back up to level.
I recently also laid 6 pallots of sod in our yard, and have followed the watering rules. We received a letter in the mail with our water bill a month or so ago about water restrictions, odd-even days, 25 minutes of watering (no sprinklers allowed), the hours. It states if you have "new grass/consruction" you can register on line for watering. I went to register, only to find out there is a fee. Forget that, I already pay for the water I use, follow all of the rules, etc. Last summer when it was so bad, I did notice people washing their cars and had their sprinklers on during the middle of the night. So I will continue to follow the rules, stand outside in the morning with the hose, and water the best I can for 25 minutes and cover the area of new grass. If we all do our part, the sooner the county/state will left certain restrictions.


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