Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - AWS with mini-float

elight · March 7, 2012

I think for the buckets, there are two benefits to mounting it vertically. One is that it probably gains you an extra .5-1" of water height than would be possible mounting to the side. The other is that it is easier to position in the bucket:

This is not exactly to scale, but based on the fact that a 5 gallon bucket is ~12" in diameter, and the float is 7" in length. It would thus be impossible to mount it perpendicular to the vertical side of the bucket without it interfering with the wicket basket (the center of which, regardless of its diameter, is 6" from the side of the bucket). You could, however, mount it as seen in the second (lower) option in the diagram.

Let me know if that makes sense!

March 7, 2012	#22
elight Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Allentown, PA Posts: 349	I think for the buckets, there are two benefits to mounting it vertically. One is that it probably gains you an extra .5-1" of water height than would be possible mounting to the side. The other is that it is easier to position in the bucket: This is not exactly to scale, but based on the fact that a 5 gallon bucket is ~12" in diameter, and the float is 7" in length. It would thus be impossible to mount it perpendicular to the vertical side of the bucket without it interfering with the wicket basket (the center of which, regardless of its diameter, is 6" from the side of the bucket). You could, however, mount it as seen in the second (lower) option in the diagram. Let me know if that makes sense!