Sprinkler Water Conservation Tips

At Greenside, we’re more than just experts in sprinkler installation and repair – we’re also here to advise and offer our expertise in all water-related areas. A big one in today’s environmentally conscious day and age: Water conservation.

Your lawn and plants need water, but many people vastly overestimate how much is necessary and end up wasting hundreds or thousands of gallons per year. Here are a few tips to help you conserve water, benefiting both your water bill and water supplies everywhere.

Watering Formats

While this is only tangentially related to sprinklers, which have their own delivery formats built in, it’s important enough to list here. When hand watering or doing any watering that goes beyond your basic sprinkler, avoid hoses without nozzles – this will deliver water too quickly, and can create runoff that carries away needed topsoil. For lighter plants, use a water can whenever possible.

How Much is Needed?

The key to watering basic grass or plants is applying just enough water to soak down to the depths of the roots. This will vary depending on your lawn and certain individual factors, but in general, a good rule of thumb is to try and stay below one inch of water on the surface – which means the soil will be soaked between six and 10 inches. You can speak with your technician about setting your sprinkler levels here during installation.

Testing Output

If any part of the system loses its calibration, you could waste a ton of extra water without knowing it. A good test is to place several flat-bottomed cans around the lawn, then run the sprinklers for 15 minutes. From here, measure water depth in the cans with a sprinkler – then add all the numbers and divide by the number of cans. This will give you the average output.

Running Length

Once you’ve calculated average output, you can calculate the necessary running length. For every round number of average output (1, 2, 3, etc.), water for 15 minutes to apply one inch evenly. If the average output is 0.5, you’ll need to run the system for 30 minutes. This simple system will keep you from wasting water while also providing your plants with the proper watering.

Want more tips on water conservation, or interested in any of our other residential sprinkler services? Speak to the experts at Greenside today.