Is Your Smart Controller Wasting Landscape Water

Western Landscape Maintenance Plus recently took over a new HOA Landscape Maintenance account in North County San Diego. Whenever we take on a new account, one of the first things we do is an irrigation audit.

This HOA had an awesome Smart Controller already installed and had a subscription to the local weather station that updates the controller every few hours. So naturally, I thought this audit would be quick, easy and painless. After all, this HOA was serious about saving water and money.

But, once we started our audit, we began Leaking sprinklersto uncover several problems that either weren’t taken care of at the time of the controller installation or that weren’t being maintained by the previous maintenance contractor over the years. The system was wasting a lot of water!

After inspecting 27 valves and all the sprinklers on each valve, we discovered several problems including over 30 leaking sprinklers; other sprinklers that were spraying right into shrubs, which caused the water to hit the shrub, fall to the ground and run down the drain (instead of being broadcast across the plants); sprinklers spraying onto buildings, asphalt, sidewalks and fences.

Of the 27 valves, 5 weren’t working, 3 had both spray heads and rotors on the same valve (which was a major waste of water since each sprinkler type distributes different amounts of water per minute), and a few areas had standing water and soggy ground.

It appeared as if this HOA was saving water. They took the initial steps, but they were not getting the most out of their system. It seemed like the contractor just installed the controllers, programmed the system to the default settings and expected savings.

Smart Controllers are great, but they need to be programmed for each property, valve, sprinkler and plant type. The entire system also needs to be inspected and tightened up to prevent wasteful water loss on a regular basis.

Moral of the story? Be sure to have an audit done every year (preferably before the spring and summer months) by your landscape maintenance contractor. They should inspect all the sprinklers for leaks, over-spray, mismatched sprinkler types, shrubs blocking spray patterns, correct zone programing/water times, etc., for without these “Tweaks”, you won’t attain the maximum water savings or money savings.

If you want more information on irrigation audits, please contact Western Landscape Maintenance, Inc. at 888-829-8333 or email us at info@westernlandscapemaintenance.com

 

Let me know what you think of this article by adding a comment below. I’d love to know if you’re alive!