Water Waste

COVID-19 has shifted consumer perspectives in unexpected ways. Residential clients have analyzed their outdoor living spaces and engaged in improvements. They’ve also sought ways to tighten budgets due to economic impacts. With that, sustainability has become a hot topic—not only saving the environment, but saving costs. At Conserva, an irrigation company founded solely on the principle of water conservation, our goal is to provide a simple program for our clients to reduce water waste and save on their monthly bills. We do this through an audit process, called a “System Efficiency Score.” Since franchising our model in 2017, Conserva Irrigation has improved the water efficiency of tens of thousands of existing sprinkler systems across 26 states. Here’s what we’ve learned. Diving Into Water Conservation When the convenience of automation and fresh water come together, there’s a high propensity for waste. Most landscape irrigation systems are programmed to water automatically two to three times per week, regardless of current weather conditions. Run times are often based more on “gut feeling” than on science and rarely adjusted for plants’ seasonal water needs.   This “set it and forget it” mentality, with systems even running during the night, leads to little oversight and wasted water. Factor in line- and head-breaks and you have the perfect storm for freshwater waste. In fact, U.S. households waste over a trillion gallons of water each year and 1.5 billion gallons daily on irrigation losses alone. Clearly, irrigation is an area in dire need of remediation at many ...