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Smart from the Start: Why Design Smart Irrigation into Your Project

If you’re a construction or irrigation manager, landscape architect, irrigation or construction specifier, you know that each project brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. To curb water waste, designing landscapes that fully leverage smart irrigation and water management is a solution that can help you avoid a myriad of headaches and missteps.

In many scenarios, the amount of water wasted in irrigation is directly related to design and installation practices. During the design phase, adhering to water management best practices should be a priority—incorporating smart irrigation is much easier and less expensive when designed in at the outset versus installing a system after the fact.

The right smart irrigation system should be simple to install and use. Avoid any irrigation system that requires the installation of radio communications and/or coordination with an IT expert. Look for a solution with out-of-the-box connectivity, which will greatly simplify set-up. Cloud-based solutions with companion mobile applications are easy to learn and to use, and save considerable management time. But let’s start by understanding why smart irrigation is critical in the first place.

6 Reasons Smart Irrigation Makes Sense
Lack of adequate water irrigation planning can lead to problems down the road like overwatering, which contributes to plant and turf diseases, property damage and unnecessary expense. But, ensuring healthy landscape and saving money are just the tip of the iceberg. Just look at all the benefits:

  1. Lower water bills: Smart systems can reduce an annual water bill by as much as 30 percent by preventing water waste. Plus, many local water providers offer rebates for purchasing specific smart controllers.
  2. Save water: Smart systems automatically suspend watering during rain, freeze or high wind conditions. Sophisticated scheduling based on weather conditions minimizes evaporation and encourages water to soak in, reducing the total amount of water needed. Preventing overwatering keeps plants healthier by encouraging stronger roots and discouraging weeds, disease and fungus growth.
  3. Save time: Centralized or cloud-based irrigation management provides complete visibility of usage, assets, budget, leaks and more across a site or portfolio of sites, as well as instant control from anywhere without complexity.
  4. Improve efficiency: Once a smart controller is programmed using site-specific data, the controller adjusts the watering schedule based upon weather conditions and soil moisture without manual intervention. Truck rolls and expensive manpower are greatly reduced.
  5. Stay in compliance: Keep water usage within regulatory mandates and/or program smart controllers to meet personal or corporate sustainability goals. “Set and forget” technology makes it easy to comply with local watering restrictions. Sophisticated systems can even optimize flow to ensure landscape receives the full amount of water needed despite tight restrictions or water windows.
  6. Earn prestigious LEED credits: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a rating system devised to evaluate the environmental performance and sustainable design. The system is credit based, allowing projects to earn points for environmentally friendly actions taken during construction.

Accurately Manage Any Site, Anytime, Anywhere Without a Single Site Visit
HydroPoint has been a longtime industry leader in smart water management technology by helping organizations:

  • Gain secure, reliable, and 360° site visibility into its irrigation system with unlimited access to centralized dashboards, reports and real-time controller programming and management— from any web browser
  • Continually track water usage and budget with notifications of atypical use, and make changes across multiple controllers or single controllers – even on different sites – if usage exceeds budget limits or other events dictate adjustments
  • Use your mobile phone as an irrigation remote control and curb frequent site visits, saving time, gas and labor expenses
  • Locate inventory with tracking and GIS mapping of water assets, and eliminate time and effort of locating equipment and irrigation assets
  • Lower risk, liability, and water bills using real-time alerts and stop leaks before they become rivers
  • Protect property investment, plant health and hardscapes
  • Make measurable progress toward sustainability goals

“The weather data is superior to any other smart irrigation controller I have used, giving landscapes the right amount of water at exactly the right time it needs it.” – Daniel Levine, former Maintenance Manager at BrightView Landscapes

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More than 20,000 commercial, multi-family developments, educational institutions, retailers, corporate campuses and landscape professionals have adopted HydroPoint. How can we help you incorporate smart water management into your design?