Are you as unhappy with your rain gauge as this family?
The Crystal Rain Gauge is a family business that grew out of frustration. General manager Lucinda Batey put it like this:
“Dad just hates things that aren’t properly made. He’d thrown out loads of broken, faded, foggy plastic rain gauges, which really bugged him. And he just couldn’t find a decent one at a reasonable price. So he decided to make it. And he thought other people would appreciate it too. So that’s how Crystal Rain Gauge started.”
The key to the product is really durable materials – borosilicate glass and marine stainless steel – that can cope with the harsh Australian weather. The graduations on the measurement cylinder are annealed on so they’re a permanent part of the glass.
“The other thing Dad hated was how hard they were to read. So he got a designer friend to work on it. Another friend who was testing out a prototype reported back: ‘It’s great! I can read it without getting out of the ute!’ – so we figured we had that right.”
After four years of tinkering, working out the manufacturing, packaging and business side of things, the Crystal Rain Gauge was launched with a small ad campaign in the middle of the 2020 Covid lockdown.
“So far we’ve sold over three thousand, so I guess Dad was right – we weren’t the only ones!”
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