Irrigation Irritation

Irrigation Irritation

Smart Irrigation Technology Transforms Water Usage Techniques

The average landscape maintenance contractor manages 150 irrigation systems for clients. Some teams manage over 1,000. This is especially common in 8-plus month growing season markets, like the South. In most cases, irrigation controllers are scattered on properties across town and crews monitor them by driving to each individual system. This time-consuming task quickly weighs on a busy team. The systems also suffer when controllers aren’t adjusted to factors like rain, temperature and time of year. Above all though, this design wastes a lot of water. In just one year, the water wasted at an average commercial property is the same amount that would provide clean drinking water to 200 families in a developing country. A Texasbased company wants to end this habit and create a new standard for irrigation.

Save Water. Give Life. This is the purpose behind Weathermatic, a worldwide provider of automated water management solutions. The company manufactures irrigation control tools, like weather sensors, sprays and nozzles, and smart control systems that can be managed from any location. Weathermatic has installed more than 750,000 systems across 85 countries, in total saving 20 billion gallons of water. The company has been a key player in the irrigation industry since it launched 75 years ago. It developed tools like the first reverse flow valve, MPR spray nozzle, commercially available electric controller and soil moisture sensors for irrigation.

“Our goal probably started more as a purist— we want to help fight the world water crisis. Our initial proposition was to say to a landscape owner, ‘The cost of water is skyrocketing across the U.S. as more infrastructure issues happen. We are a water management company with an answer,” says Weathermatic’s President Lex Mason.

Smart irrigation control systems use wifi and cellular technology to allow one person in one location to manage numerous irrigation systems. Remote teams can now communicate with actual controller boxes from anywhere. These types of systems save water and an enormous amount of time. Now, landscaping teams can avoid the traditional technique of visiting multiple sites a day to adjust multiple systems on that site.

“To many people, water savings is great. It also solves a more personal problem though,” says Lex. “The fact that they can’t find enough irrigation technicians and their small team is tied up with these minute tasks. I mean, we’re in 2021 and people are being sent across town to push a button and turn a dial on a plastic box on the side of the building? It’s crazy.”

This is another, and in some cases more motivating, benefit of smart irrigation systems, and why they are being utilized in more commercial and residential spaces each day. The environmental benefits are immense. Lex says the cost and labor savings are the icing on the cake though.

“The running joke is people call it ‘irrigation irritation.’ If we can solve a small irritating aspect of irrigation, we can help elevate the professionalism of the landscape industry. It makes the service better. It makes the work better. It improves personal earnings. It even helps attract top talent because they aren’t having to worry about those frustrating manual tasks,” says Lex.

There are so many different potential improvements for the landscape industry as a whole

Time, cost and labor are all saved from this sustainability-based idea. Smart irrigation can even save human lives. The Weathermatic team has helped 25,000 people in 76 communities throughout the world with partnerships with non-profit foundations. Sustainably focused techniques are not only solutions to climate and conservation challenges. They have unlimited potential to improve our businesses, our communities and our people.

Lex Mason

Contact

Lex Mason

Weathermatic

Tel: (888) 484 –3776

www.weathermatic.com