Audits Help Customers Save Water
During Smart Irrigation Month
Summer is here, and Smart Irrigation Month is fast approaching. What better time to sell your customers on the benefits of irrigation system audits?
An audit can provide extensive insight into a homeowner’s system, ensuring that water is applied properly to each area of the landscape. Successful audits deliver the information needed to create an irrigation schedule that will maximize system efficiency and save your customer money. Even systems that are routinely maintained can benefit from an occasional audit.
First Things First
Properly performed irrigation audits always begin with a system inspection. Working from a site map will help you thoroughly analyze the irrigation system’s mechanics, starting with the point of connection. Closely examine all vital information, including backflows, flow rates and pressure.
Faulty or degrading components are often easily identified, but it’s also important to check sprinkler head alignment. Improperly aligned heads produce spray patterns that can misdirect water to non-targeted areas and seriously compromise efficiency.
Once you’ve identified problems and made the necessary repairs, it’s time to move on to the performance test.
Performance Testing
Precipitation rate (PR) and distribution uniformity (DU) are the two primary performance measures for an irrigation system. Most auditors evenly space their catch-cans in a grid-like pattern across each individual irrigation zone.
Recommended catchment device spacing is as follows:
Fixed spray heads – place catch-cans halfway between sprinkler heads.
Rotor sprinklers with less than 40-foot centers – place catch-cans every one-third of the distance between heads.
Rotor heads with greater than 40-foot centers – place catch-cans every one-fourth of the distance between heads.
For irregularly shaped areas, place cans in a uniform grid, pattern five to eight feet apart for fixed spray sprinklers and 10 to 20 feet apart for rotor sprinklers.
After you’ve placed the catch-cans across an irrigation zone, run that zone for 30 to 60 minutes. (The longer the run time, the more accurate your results.) Then measure and record the water depth for each catchment device. Repeat the procedure for each zone.
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Precipitation Rate Calculation
Calculate PR by averaging the depth of water in your catch-cans after one hour of run time. For example, if the average depth of 20 cans is 0.75 inches and you ran the zone for 30 minutes, the PR would be 1.5 inches per hour.)
After you’ve calculated the PR for each zone, you can set the run times. For instance, if you want to apply 0.5 inches of water in one irrigation cycle and the PR is two inches per hour, you would set the zone for 15 minutes.
Distribution Uniformity Calculation
About Smart
Irrigation Month
Smart Irrigation Month was created by the Irrigation Association (IA) as an annual initiative to promote the social, economic and environmental benefits of efficient irrigation during the month of July.
First launched in 2005, Smart Irrigation Month has gained traction each year, as homeowners and the green industry recognize the importance of efficient irrigation during the hottest summer months.
The IA offers a host of Smart Irrigation Month resources for marketing your company as a leader in water-efficiency practices with customers, business partners and peers.
Calculate DU by first averaging the depth of the lowest 25 percent of your catch-cans, then divide that figure by the overall average of all cans.
In other words, if you used 20 cans per zone, and the average of your five lowest cans is 0.5 inches, then you’d divide 0.5 by 0.75 to give you 67 percent. Typically, a DU of 70 percent is considered excellent. Irrigation systems with lower than 60 percent uniformity produce uneven distributions and should be adjusted for more uniform coverage.
Helpful Tools
Audit Guidelines to assist irrigation professionals with fieldwork procedures, techniques, and performance calculations are available through the Irrigation Association.
Looking for a comprehensive irrigation audit worksheet? Click here for electronic format. Click here for a printable form.
Selling It
Irrigation audits are the most effective way to ensure that system components are being used properly. According to industry experts, the typical savings homeowners can expect from a water audit is between 40 and 60 percent.
With in-ground systems and running at night, it’s easy for problems to go undetected. Auditing addresses those problems; it optimizes your customers’ water usage while still maintaining their landscape’s appearance and saving them money — good for them and good for the planet.
Irrigation Professionals Benefit from a
“Client-First” Approach
Spring and summer are critical for the green industry.
As an irrigation contractor, the next few months are likely your busiest season, when your customers depend on your expertise to assist them in keeping their landscapes green and healthy.
Customer relations are the lifeblood of contracting; small businesses rely on repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals. Loyal clients can leave positive online reviews resulting in business growth and increased service opportunities.
Customer Service Basics
Let’s start with a review of the basics straight from the customer service textbook:
First impressions are critical. You must present yourself professionally whenever you’re meeting potential clients. Never be late — ever. Remain courteous at all times.
Be accessible! Make it easy for your customers to reach you. Return phone calls and emails promptly. Keep all communications clear and concise.
Manage an angry customer with tact and finesse. Always remain calm, recognizing that the client is most likely mad about the situation – not you personally. Listen carefully so you can properly address his concerns. By successfully resolving such conflicts, you’ll make life-long customers.
Mistakes happen. But you can turn a misstep into a positive customer experience by addressing it promptly and responsibly. Don’t make excuses. Ask how you can fix the mistake and then do it.
Respect your client’s property by cleaning up as you work. Never leave your customer with a mess.
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Going Above and Beyond
Upgrading your customer service from good to exceptional will help your irrigation business stand out from the competition. If you’re ready for that, here are some of the most important ways you can go the extra mile for your clients:
Empower Your Crew
Take as little time as possible to make the right decisions for the job. Make sure your crew members use their time efficiently. It helps to train and empower them to make critical decisions. Customers should not have to ask the crew leader, who then must ask the account manager, who then must ask you or someone else. Properly trained crew members should be able to answer those questions and repair that sprinkler head.
Is Your Company’s Culture
Customer-Centric?
You can take your company’s customer service standards to the next level by ensuring that your company culture reinforces the critical value of the client. Here are some tips for creating a customer-centric culture for your irrigation business:
Define the behaviors and skill sets that support exceptional customer service and align those behaviors with your business practices.
Identify areas where your current business culture does not reflect a “customer-first” approach. Realign these areas to support the desired behaviors.
Advise your staff of the ways the organization is changing its structure and business strategy to become more client-focused. Then enlist their help.
Ensure all employees are engaged with their work, especially front-line workers. Employee engagement and customer satisfaction are closely correlated.
Reward exceptional customer service. Even small gestures or recognition by peers can have a big impact.
Hire individuals who uphold your service goals. Create a profile for hiring with input from employees who provide the best customer service, and evaluate applicants for both service aptitude and irrigation experience.
Spend Time at the Site
Arrange for you or your account managers to visit client properties regularly, especially if a landscape is sophisticated or the customer is highly involved. Spending time on the property boosts the customer’s confidence in your work. You can drop the homeowner a quick note explaining any issues you’ve identified and your plans to address them.
Communicate Always
Keep in touch with your customers, even during the off-season, so they remember your business. Regular communications provide opportunities to evaluate the property and make suggestions, such as system upgrades. Social media posts and monthly newsletters are great ways to keep your clients current on your business, the irrigation industry, or general landscape information. Encourage referrals and repeat customers by including discount codes.
Customize Your Services
Cater to each client’s individual needs. Don’t treat them generically. Make an effort to assure your customers that you and your team know exactly what they want. Build rapport by welcoming client feedback and then implementing it. Your whole crew should know your customers by name.
Putting It All Together
In today’s competitive environment, it takes more than common sense and courtesy to rise to the top of the customer service game. Extending yourself and empowering your crew to go the extra mile on behalf of your clients will position your irrigation business as an industry leader.
The popularity of landscape lighting for residential properties shows no signs of slowing down.
Whether it’s used to illuminate pathways, highlight landscape features, improve security, or create an inviting atmosphere for guests, outdoor lighting has become a go-to improvement for homeowners. Here are five of the latest landscape lighting trends:
LED Lighting
Not surprisingly, more homeowners are switching to LEDs for energy efficiency and longer lifespan. LED bulbs last around three to five times longer than conventional fluorescent bulbs and 30 times longer than incandescent bulbs. [See sidebar, “Incandescent Bulb Ban.”]
By switching to LEDs, your customers can expect lower utility bills, less maintenance, reduced carbon emissions, and less waste from the disposal of burned-out bulbs. And since LED lights are now available in a variety of colors, you can customize architectural lighting to match the style of your customer’s home.
Incandescent
Bulb Ban
In May of last year, the Department of Energy issued a new ruling that requires lighting products to meet new standards. As a result, the manufacture and sale of most incandescent and halogen products will be phased out by August 1, 2023.
The new measure bans the sale of bulbs that produce less than 45 lumens per watt. However, incandescent and halogen bulbs purchased before the phase-out date may still be used.
Directional LED lights can be used for dramatic effects, such as highlighting an accent area or creating contrast. Also, LEDs are more durable and much cooler than other bulbs, so they’re safe around children, pets and plants. What’s more, they don’t attract insects, making outdoor living spaces more enjoyable.
Solar Lighting
Homeowners looking for the most cost-effective and sustainable way to enhance gardens and walkways have made solar lighting very popular right now. The huge advantage of solar is the zero operating cost. While the initial outlay for a quality solar fixture can be high, your customers can recoup this cost pretty quickly.
There are a couple of drawbacks, however. Solar lights recharge just fine in direct sunlight, but partial shade, rain or overcast skies can diminish their effectiveness, resulting in low light output or short running time.
Most solar landscape lights are less bright than electric fixtures. They provide ambient lighting, tending toward a bluish hue. In other words, they’re ideal for garden pathways, but their use as security lighting is limited. According to Bob Vila, the average solar path light delivers the equivalent of a 40-watt light bulb.
Smart Lighting
Smart outdoor lighting systems allow homeowners to control their lights by phone, tablet or computer. All lighting can be adjusted by app instead of a control box. Timers can be set, lights can be brightened, dimmed, or color changed with a few taps on a smart device.
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Smart lighting systems offer increased security, as they can be pre-programmed to turn on and off automatically, whether your customer is home or away. Notifications can be sent directly to the homeowner’s phone in the event of a lighting malfunction.
Smart systems can also be equipped with motion sensors — perfect for illuminating pathways.
Color-Changing Lights
Color-changing lights add a unique touch to your outdoor space. Your customers can choose from a variety of colors — even create custom combinations. This type of lighting is often reserved for special occasions, such as holidays, but can be used at any time of year.
Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and Independence Day can all be colorfully celebrated with just a few clicks on a smartphone. Sports enthusiasts use color-changing outdoor lights to root for their favorite teams on game day.
Ambient Downlights
The warm, welcoming effect of downlighting is very trendy right now. Downliights are designed to simulate the natural light emitted from the sun, moon and stars. Mounted on walls, ceilings, or trees, they highlight a property’s ground-level features by creating a downward illumination.
Downlighting is used less for security and more to create ambiance and accentuate a home’s exterior layers and textures. It can be installed on just about any overhead structure. An added benefit is that downlighting keeps light pollution at a minimum.
EPA Program Has Transformed
Landscape Irrigation Industry
Over the last 16 years, the EPA’s WaterSense program has transformed the landscape irrigation market with products that save water, energy, and money.
The program’s accomplishments include:
Helping Americans save 6.4 trillion gallons of water – the equivalent of water used by all U.S. households in eight months;
Saving more than $135 billion in water and energy bills through the use of WaterSense products and practices;
Reducing the amount of energy needed to pump, treat, and heat water by 754 billion kilowatt hours – enough to power 70 million homes for one year.
Irrigation Certification and Labeling
WaterSense began certifying and labeling weather-based irrigation controllers in 2011 and sprinkler heads in 2017. Soil moisture sensors joined the suite of WaterSense-labled irrigation products in 2021. All of these WaterSense products can be combined to achieve even more efficiency and savings.
Fix a Leak Week
This year, the EPA’s annual Fix a Leak Week runs from March 20 through 26. This is the best time to remind your customers to plug those water-wasting household leaks, including any leaks in their irrigation system.
Encourage them to schedule their Spring tune-ups early before the seasonal rush. The sooner you correct any problems, the better!
Also, refer your customers to the EPA’s Fix a Leak resources page for information about identifying and repairing common household leaks.
The EPA estimates that replacing a standard clock-based irrigation controller with a WaterSense-labled controller can save an average home up to 15,000 gallons of water annually. An additional 5,600 gallons of water can be saved by switching to a WaterSense sprinkler head.
To date, more than 1,100 product models of sprinkler heads, irrigation controllers, and soil sensors have earned the WaterSense label for efficiency and performance.
Drip Irrigation
In 2018, WaterSense created two drip irrigation guides, offering design, installation, and maintenance tips. The guides were designed to assist homeowners and irrigation professionals in maximizing outdoor water efficiency while enhancing the health and beauty of the landscape.
During Covid
Ohio IA Represented
at Advocacy Day
JC Wheaton, Tom Barrett, and Scott Knowles represented the Ohio IA at Ohio Green Industry Advocacy Day on February 22, 2023. The Ohio IA members met with their local legislators to discuss issues most pertinent to the state’s irrigation industry.
In addition, WaterSense developed new social media tools to help promote the use of mulch and drought-tolerant plants. And a new turf grass page on the EPA’s website promoted smart lawn management decisions.
Also in 2020, WaterSense collaborated with the Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) to offer a series of free public webinars on various outdoor water topics. More than 400 attendees learned about plant choices, soil amendments, landscape transformations, and the benefits of soil moisture sensors.
Want to Become WaterSense Certified?
Becoming a certified WaterSense professional demonstrates to your customers that you have the knowledge and experience to help them save both water and money. Click Here to learn about the program’s benefits and requirements.
Do you know an enterprising college student who’s interested in pursuing a career in irrigation?
He or she may be eligible for an Anthony W. “Tony” LaFetra Scholarship, available through the Irrigation Association and sponsored by Rain Bird.
The IA created its Workforce Development scholarship program in 2017 to help promote irrigation education and provide financial support to worthy candidates pursuing irrigation-related degrees. These scholarships range from $1,000 to $2,500 and are awarded based on:
Encourage Ohio
Students to Pursue Irrigation
Out of 107 Irrigation Association scholarships awarded since 2017, only two Ohio students have received the prize. We can do better!
Help position our industry for future growth by encouraging students at local two- and four-year institutions to pursue careers in irrigation. Spread the word that these scholarships are available for worthy individuals.
Don’t delay! Application deadline is March 31, 2023.
Student’s letter of intent,
Student’s financial need,
Three reference letters,
Student’s resume, and
Student’s current or completed irrigation-related courses.
About the Scholarship
Through 2026, the IA’s scholarship program is being sponsored exclusively by Rain Bird Corporation. The program has been renamed the Anthony W. “Tony” LaFetra Scholarship Program in honor of Rain Bird’s late president and CEO. The two top scholarship recipients will be designated as Anthony W. “Tony” LaFetra scholars. Last year Troy Bowman, a Cincinnati State student, was one of those top recipients.
Eligible students must:
Be a U.S. citizen;
Be currently enrolled (undergraduate or graduate) at a U.S. vocation or technical school, university, community college, or similar institution of higher learning with a graduation date of December 2023 or later;
Have completed or be currently enrolled in a class with an irrigation-related curriculum;
Not be a prior recipient of this award;
Have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.5 (on a 4.0 scale); and
Demonstrate financial need.
Scholarship applications, instructions, and additional information are available here.
Join Us February 22, 2023 at the
Ohio Statehouse for Advocacy Day!
Join the industry partners of OhioPLANT in the upcoming Green Industry Advocacy Day scheduled for Tuesday, February 22, 2023 at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. Show your organization is part of a multi-billion dollar industry in Ohio and the importance of having a presence with Ohio’s new 135th General Assembly.
OhioPLANT is a coalition of pesticide, landscape, agriculture, nursery, and turf professionals who collaboratively advocate on behalf of those professions represented. This unified voice has made OhioPLANT the go-to resource for our state agencies and elected officials when discussing matters impacting these industries.
Tentative schedule of the day:
8:30 – 9:30 AM
Legislative Breakfast Reception
9:30 – 10:00 AM
OhioPLANT Update – Tony Seegers. Esq.
10:00 – 10:30 AM
Guest Speaker TBD
10:30 – 11:00 AM
Guest Speaker TBD
11:00 AM and on
Appointments with legislators
Boxed lunch at your convenience
Ohio Green Industry Advocacy Day is hosted by industry partners of OhioPLANT.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to network with green industry colleagues, meet with your state legislators, and make your voice heard on issues critical to irrigation professionals.
This year, our participation in this grassroots effort is more important than ever before.
House and Senate term limits mean there will be many new faces in the state legislature, as well as in committees and chairs. Let’s make ourselves known to them!
Free to Ohio IA Members
Ohio Green Industry Advocacy Day is FREE to Ohio IA members.
As one of the events sponsors, we’re counting on you. Legislative and regulatory advocacy is one of the key benefits of Ohio IA membership which is strengthened by your active participation.
Advocacy Day provides a unique opportunity to build relationships with both green industry business partners, and members of the Ohio legislature and their staff. After all, who can tell our story better than you?
REGISTRATION
Free to Ohio IA members
What to Expect
The morning session will feature key legislative speakers, after which attendees will be briefed on discussion issues for the legislative meetings scheduled in the afternoon.
The afternoon meetings with elected officials provide an opportunity to discuss key irrigation issues (like water quality, water quantity, and environmental reforms) and state policymakers. Our legislators must hear from us in order to make informed decisions about issues critical to our industry.
This year, our participation in this grassroots effort is more important than ever before.
