All of the neighbor’s yards are yellow, some almost brown, but not his. His is a lush, deep green, with a maze of radiant flower beds lining grass pathways leading to healthy vegetable gardens, berry patches, and apple trees. A green thumb? Perhaps, but clearly this spectacle requires volumes upon volumes of water to sustain – far more than the average rainfall allows. “How does he do it?” the neighbors ponder. “His water meter reads less than ours!” Not that they would check it, of course.

He tells them of a rain dance he learned from The People of the Blue Rock, but the truth is he has a one-of-a-kind backyard geyser, originally created when his kids thought “wouldn’t it be nice if there were one in the yard” after visiting Yellowstone.

Since his house is by the shores of the Atlantic, he decided on tidal power for his geyser. Just offshore he has a dock, a heavily weighted dock, with enough floats on the underside to keep it buoyant, and then some. The dock is attached to a huge piston centered below, which is set in a cement base and anchored to the seafloor.

When the tide rises, the dock pulls the piston up. The piston draws water in through a wide screen to filter out fish and seaweed, then a smaller screen for shrimp, et cetera, then a series of progressively smaller tubular membranes. It fills with desalinated water through this one-way inlet to the height of the tide via ‘sucking’ reverse osmosis.

As the piston draws upwards, it is held to that height by a ratcheting mechanism. When the tide goes out, the dock and piston remain at the high water mark.

Attached to the dock, a mechanical timer begins a 6.5 hr. countdown as the water level drops below the supported dock. The timer has a cord with a weight and float at the end. When the weight hangs in air, the clock is ticking. The float allows a coil spring in the timer to reel the weight back in when submerged. At 6.5 hrs. it drops a heavy bead, which slides down a thin pole to hit the ratchet switch, releasing it. The piston compresses.

Now under high pressure from the weight of this configuration, the water is forced through a one-way outlet at high speed into a pipe, where it travels inland underground, curving up to a vertical position in the center of his backyard, flush with the surface. Here it blasts high and wide through an angled rotating grate before raining back down on his thirsty land.

His kids spray painted a few rocks yellow, and made a wooden ‘Old Faithful’ sign. They love it. His nosy neighbors may forever suck at rain dancing.
-- Shz, Aug 09 2005

Very nice...I wonder how much it would cost to implement something like this. I live near the Atlantic, and I'd like to have something like this. Do you want to come over and implement your idea in my yard? I'll give you $5 (USD).
-- goober, Aug 09 2005


I’ll teach you a rain dance for $5.
-- Shz, Aug 10 2005


Cute.

What do I get for £5 ?
-- skinflaps, Aug 10 2005


half a hose.
-- po, Aug 10 2005


Excellent.
-- calum, Aug 10 2005


Not sure reverse osmosis is fast enough to desalinate a geyser's worth of water (you need 50 atm pressure just to get the process to start with seawater), but hey, this is certainly half-baked.
-- DrCurry, Aug 10 2005


[+] this would take playing in the sprinkler to a brand new level. pardon the pun. :)
-- babyhawk, Aug 10 2005



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