Spruce Up Your Sprinkler System and Save!
Spring has arrived! The onset of warmer weather can lead to an increase in landscape irrigation. Before you ramp up your watering, be sure to spruce up your irrigation system. System maintenance can help save you a lot of money and water! Cracks in pipes can lead to costly leaks, and broken sprinkler heads can waste water and money. You could be losing up to 25,000 gallons of water and $280 over a six-month irrigation season!
Now is the perfect time to spruce up your irrigation system.
To get started, follow these four simple steps—inspect, connect, direct, and select:
- Inspect. Check your system for clogged, broken, or missing sprinkler heads. We have a handy checklist for you, here. Or if you’d rather go with a pro—find an irrigation professional certified by a WaterSense labeled irrigation program to do the work for you. (Did you know? A broken or missing sprinkler head could waste as much as 25,000 gallons of water and $280 over a six-month irrigation season.)
- Connect. Examine points where the sprinkler heads connect to pipes/hoses. If water is pooling in your landscape or you have large soggy areas, you could have a leak in your system. A leak as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen (1/32 of an inch) can waste about 6,300 gallons of water per month.
- Direct. Are you watering the driveway, house, or sidewalk instead of your yard? Redirect sprinklers to apply water only to the landscape.
- Select. An improperly scheduled irrigation controller can waste a lot of water and money. Update your system’s schedule with the seasons, or select a WaterSense labeled controller to take the guesswork out of scheduling.
Experts estimate that as much as half of the water we use outdoors is being wasted due to evaporation, wind, or runoff caused by inefficient irrigation methods and systems. Don’t waste water, add “sprinkler spruce-up” to your spring cleaning list this year.
Learn more about maintaining a water-smart yard by visiting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense website at www.epa.gov/watersense/outdoors.
From time to time, Water – Use It Wisely features guest bloggers who write about topics related to water and water conservation. This month, we are featuring WaterSense®, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program designed to encourage water efficiency in the United States through the use of a special label on consumer products. Launched in June 2006, the WaterSense® program, a voluntary public-private partnership, has saved American consumers more than $33 billion (in 2015 dollars) on their water and energy bills over the past decade. Since its inception, it has been immensely successful at achieving its goal of reducing water consumption. An estimated 1.5 trillion gallons have been saved using WaterSense-labeled products.