WATER MANAGEMENT

Flow Meters- The best way to measure the performance of an irrigation system is to have a flow meter installed. Trying to get too technical and efficient without a flow meter is just plainly making a guess of what’s occurring. With the introduction of smart controllers in the residential market flow meters have become very cost effective to install on existing systems, and should be part of every newly installed system. With a flow meter the controller can learn how much water in gallons specific zones require. With this information troubleshooting of the system, scheduling, and conserving is made easy.

Timely Repairs-It always interesting that many of us wait to repair our irrigation system after a major failure such as a broken valve, sprinkler, or pipe. Much more water is wasted due to small leaks in valves and sprinklers, and almost all valves and sprinklers leak.  Just imagine that every sprinkler head and valve is like your bathroom sink, and imagine a small zone has 10 sprinklers on it. With that, as we have all witnessed, its possible to have 10 leaking sinks/heads. That’s a lot of wasted water. While the math would be tiresome and not accurate, we could calculate water loss with a large error rate. IF we had a flow meter, we could get close to an exact number if water measurement had been kept.

Pressure Regulating and Check Valve sprinklers (SAM PRS)-  Many states throughout the country are requiring pressure regulating sprinklers to be installed. This is to conserve water, and for the right amount of water to be applied to the right place. Pressure regulating heads reduce the pressure at the head to the optimum pressure per the manufacturer. This reduces many issues and conserves water. Oregon is on the forefront of legislation such as this and all new installations are required to have PRS heads installed, but there are many homes out there without this technology, and many homes wasting a precious resource. 

Rain Sensors/Smart Controllers- Rain sensors are becoming less useful as smart controllers become more available, but they are still far more accurate than the smart controller. Since the smart controller is reading information from a site possibly miles away it's not as accurate as an onsite measurement. These devices are cheap and effective to install. It only takes a couple of events of not watering to pay for this device. 

Aeration- Many of us don’t think about soil compaction being an issue with watering, but its major contributor to run off.  Compaction also inhibits nutrients reaching the root zone of the lawn, and when yellow lawns occur in the summer the consumer almost always increases watering time.  It is recommended, and best practice to aerate annually. Lawns are high maintenance, and to do it right can be costly.  It's typically more costly to do it wrong though if you're trying to overwater due to compaction issues.