Update: Okay, at the end of this article I wrote “I don’t foresee major problems, which may say more about my foresight than how challenging the issue might be.” which turned out to be accurate. The pool recirculation pump and the salvaged piping isn’t up to the job. so I’m hiring a pro to install proper piping and equipment. I’m designing the control system since I need to be able to monitor and control the deluge system from anywhere via my smartphone. With that edit, here’s the original post:
Calling this a sprinkler system seems to be minimizing the impact. Let’s call it a fire deluge system. This post and video are going to cover how we are going to control the fire deluge system and monitor it remotely.
The short answer is that we’re going to use Home Assistant for this. My immediate mental picture about Home Assistant is some geeky guy (me!) spending days and months fiddling around to turn his house lights on and off and automating the window shades so they close at sunset and open at dawn until his wife becomes terminally irritated and leaves him for her yoga instructor. Yes, I can do that with Home Assistant–well all except the last part (I hope). But I can also control about anything, which is what I need to do to build this project.
With some added electronics I can even control things that weren’t built to be “smart”, although most things are these days. For example, I recently replaced a water heater that only serves the guest rooms–it’s rarely used so I just got a cheap Rheem from the big box store instead of a heat pump version. I was surprised to find that it’s smart, so I can control it from home assistant, and use a calendar to turn it way down when there’s no guests, and back up when people are scheduled to visit. It only took me about 30 hours of hair pulling to get that working, but I’m getting quicker, especially since I realized I can just tell any handy AI to write the YAML code for me. YAML is the configuration code behind Home Assistant’s user interface (similar to XML, SGML and other markup languages).
Really. I did, and it worked.
Here’s the YAML Perplexity wrote for me to control shades automatically. We’ll get into all that in more detail soon, but it’s quite handy. Here’s what I asked Mr. Perplexity: “Show me YAML for opening all blinds in the morning and closing blind 1 partially, blind 2 closed, blind 3 closed at night” and here’s some of the code. It worked perfectly.
So I’m going to use home assistant to control everything, and Mr. Perplexity is going to help. One thing I like about Home Assistant is that it is fundamentally local, meaning you don’t have to use some company’s cloud software to run it, you don’t even have to keep it connected to the internet. There IS a cloud system available, but it’s optional, mostly just for remote control, and if you’re adamantly against cloud stuff you can do remote control yourself with a bit (actually a bunch) of work, though you’ll still need internet of course. I’m satisfied with the security and anonymity of the Nabu Casa cloud system. Smart home data transmitted via Nabu Casa’s servers is encrypted, and the company cannot access unencrypted user data. I’m too lazy for the painful homebrew version of remote control, I’m using Nabu Casa cloud.
I’m also adding cameras around my home and shop that I can view from anywhere in the world. I can be notified that there is a fire emergency (yes, automatically), look at the cameras to assess the situation, and decide to turn my pool circulation pump on, and open valves to deluge my home and property with water. Thanks to the fine folks at Signature Solar I’ve got a EG4 12000PV hybrid inverter with an EG4 Wall Mount Lithium Battery under it supplying 14.3kWh of uninterruptible power running everything in the fire fighting system. Once the deluge system is on, I’ve designed it to run until I turn it off. So even if the internet goes down if the water mains continue adding water to the pool, and sun shines or the grid stays up, that could be a very long time. It’s a long time even without sun, grid, or water. By my calculations with no added water my fairly small lap pool will supply water for 168 hours at 80 GPM of flow. The pool pump will run at 80 GPM for 20 hours with no added power. With sun producing my usual 30kWh per day and the pump taking about 22kWh per day the we’d probably be limited by water before power.
edit: I’m looking at ways to use Starlink Roam as a backup for internet access. Roam is limited data, but more than sufficient for this use, and I can turn it on and off–I probably can even write an automation to do that, so I’ll only be charged the $50 monthly fee when and if I use it. Of course the next time I get pissed off with the internet service at our home I might switch over to standard Starlink anyway.
As often happens with systems that can be integrated, a benefit of one system becomes the benefit of the other. Whether you already have, or have always wanted a pool for the summer, Home Assistant can monitor and adjust the pool for you, your PV system can power it (and of course Home Assistant monitors the PV System), and the pool supplies water for the deluge–whether or not the grid goes down and water gets cut off.
And while we’re talking about this stuff, lets also talk about the value added to all these systems (and perhaps even some high-value business opportunities–NOT FOR ME!! I’m very, very retired, but maybe for you). Things like Solar Power and Home Automation can be a tough sell. The benefits are long term, the payback is slow, and they replace things that you are already using (like the electrical grid, or light switches) that work OK and don’t take much attention. But what if they can also save your house, your property, even your life, while they offer all the usual benefits. Suddenly it’s a lot more compelling, even urgent.
Adding the capability of installing a system like this seems to be an easier sale–for a pool service person, a solar installer, an electrician, or for any reasonably skilled person. I’m too much of a marketer to think that just because I want this system that everyone else does. But this does feel like it would be a compelling sales pitch.
At least it is for me. Summer is coming, and the rain that made us feel safe is ending, and now all the brush and grass that grew so rapidly in the rain will dry out and become the greatest hazard.
I’m meeting with tree service folks and electricians this week. We’re starting work right away. I plan to be done by April 30. Of course I’ll be videoing everything, shooting lots of pictures, and providing all the information you need to do this yourself. Tick-tock…
In the next post and video we’ll start building stuff. The guy who maintains our pool is going to help me rip out the piping we installed a few years ago for a passive solar pool heater that never worked well. We’re going to reuse the piping to build the sprinkler header around the house. The core of that system is the solar heater component of our Jandy Aqualink pool controller. We’re going to repurpose the automatic valve and it’s control channel to feed the fire deluge header which will run around the perimeter of the house with risers located to cover the house, courtyard, and the surrounding landscape–some of which is more jungle than landscape. The pool controller can link to Home Assistant, though it has a somewhat spotty record according to the chatter in the related forums. There’s one apparently successful integration here: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/pool-control-with-a-picture-entities-card-and-aqualinkd/238496 I’ll be trying that out next week. If I find it too unreliable I’ll just directly control the pump and valve with some ESP32-managed relays with MQQT. I’ve done that previously for various projects, though I didn’t use Home Assistant. I don’t foresee major problems, which may say more about my foresight than how challenging the issue might be.