Crystal Cove is a 3,674-acre residential community located on the coast of Orange County, California. Park West, a leading provider of landscape construction, landscape management and tree care services, recently completed a smart irrigation installation at the luxury community.

"Originally, we looked at upgrading the existing equipment. But when we evaluated its general capabilities and what that would have cost, we determined that installing a new system was a better fit for the community overall," said Danny Smith, director of water management at Park West.

Contributing Factors
The existing irrigation controllers were based on analog phone lines and hardwire communication. Smith noted, "What we found was that the communications were essentially not working." A multitude of factors contributed to this - ground squirrels and gophers chewing through the wires as well as the construction of new home phases over the years. The irrigation team at Park West conducted a full analysis of the existing system.

"There were several areas that were in penalty" for the amount of water being used, said Smith. They also found that there were areas being under-watered. They checked each point of connection, basket strainer, master valve and flow sensor and if they did not look like they would be functional within three years, they were either flagged for service or replaced completely.

A Right Resolution

The controllers receive evapotranspiration (ET) data on a daily basis and adjust programming based on that information as well as manually entered user data.

For areas of the property that were being under-watered, Park West put together an initial program that watered based on the original design. "Then every few months, we reduced the irrigation frequency while maintaining proper soil moisture to train the plants to develop a longer root system," said Smith.

Each different area of landscape was programmed based on the irrigation method, the precipitation rate of that method, and runoff.

The new irrigation system can be controlled either from an app or from the manufacturer's website. "The webpage allows us to have all functionality," said Smith. "The app allows us to review alerts, manually irrigate, turn controllers on and off, and pause for rain."

The controllers were divided into three groups. By grouping them, they can be managed more efficiently. "For example, in less than 30 seconds we can turn off 75 controllers in a certain area without turning off any other controllers throughout the property," explained Smith.

"From an environmental standpoint, with Crystal Cove so close to the coastline, the project's design allows us to better manage potential large-equipment issues like mainline breaks or stuck valves and thereby mitigate the amount of waste water that would otherwise end up in our ocean," he noted.

The Outcome
"We have been able to irrigate more effectively," said Smith of the results of the installation, which was completed in August 2017. And the controllers have built-in volt meters that continually check the irrigation circuits to make sure they are operational. As ground squirrels and gophers have a tendency to shut down circuits, the system will alert the irrigators if this happens.

"Our two-year analysis found that the property was being under-irrigated with regard to what is horticulturally correct," he said. "With this information and past water bills, we put together a program to irrigate to the needs of the plant material. It has all made the overall irrigation operations much more efficient.