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The Environmental Protection Agency is planning a certification program that will lend the WaterSense label to controllers that meet strict standards. Information on the WaterSense program is available at www.epa.gov/watersense.
Tips on installing specific controllers can be found free-of-charge at dedicated irrigation retailers.
The growing trend in landscape is to consolidate ways to manage resources, as resources become more and more endangered. With water being the most endangered resource of all, this makes for great reliance on products that are water efficient, but still able to do the job. The birth of smart controller technology has spurred products that perform while increasing water efficiency and it's a good thing more and more programs that evaluate the use of water are also coming about.
The newest program geared to promote water efficiency and prime market demand for water-efficient products and services, is the EPA's WaterSense program. Rolled out this past summer, the program's goals are, according to the EPA website, to raise awareness of the importance of efficient water use and to ensure that consumers can easily identify high performance products that will meet EPA standards.
Runoff in irrigation is exceptionally high due to ill-installed systems. By accurately irrigating and efficiently metering the amount of water, forcing water to percolate into a root zone rather than runoff the surface, the amount of runoff from irrigation can be decreased by using a controller with the smart controller technology.
The EPA developed a label, much like the Energy Star label for energy conserving products, to be placed on products and services that will be at least 20 percent more efficient in saving water than that of their counterparts. Irrigation controllers bearing this label will be available later this year.
More and more customers will certainly be requesting these labeled products and it's a good idea too they'll save you money over the long haul while proving your water conserving motto, not to mention helping you help your customers save water. These products will also be used more among water districts, whose use of smart controllers is a response by the industry taking advantage of current technologies and using more of the advanced control technologies in irrigation that are available.
One obvious way to get some guidance for installing a smart controller is to purchase it at a dedicated irrigation outlet. If the distributor sells a smart controller to a customer, and holds his hand through the process of purchase to installation, to set-up, not only does the customer successfully implement a tool for water efficiency, but so does the distributor. Everyone wins and in the end, water runoff is reduced, which is the most important part.
Typically contractors get a job with smart landscape specifications and don't know how to use the products. Contractors should expect the seller of these products to be able to walk them through the set-up of these smart controllers and educate them along the way. Staying abreast of these smart landscaping products is also a good idea, in case a job pops up with specifications requiring them. For a good source for educational seminars on smart landscaping, log onto www.irrigatortech.com.
The smart controller technology uses equipment to sense, on site, what weather conditions are using a network of information that gathers weather data. Smart controllers can tell if the weather is hot or dry, and will irrigate according to those conditions. The whole idea with a smart controller is to respond day to day on what weather trends are, rather than to averages over a period of years.
Smart-controller technology has equipment with real-time sensors, sensing what the controllers are irrigating, how they are irrigating, etc. The contractor sets the controllers for the plant types that are designed in that irrigation zone, the soil type (clay, sandy, etc.), degree slope of the soil, root zone depth and estimated precipitation for the area being irrigated. The sensors then take all this data that is already programmed, and adds in weather data to dynamically create programs for every day. The sensors incorporate a real precipitation rate and figures out how fast to reapply water to the area, and how deep to water, based off this rate in accordance with the manually set factors.
Growing demands for water and the need to protect water sources have prompted water and wastewater utilities, along with agriculture and industry, to rely on water efficiency as a low-cost approach to meet customer and business needs. Most water districts in Southern California offer a rebate or voucher program to promote the use of smart controller technology to save water. Irrigation suppliers, such as Hydro-Scape stores, accept vouchers that come from some of these programs. San Diego County Water Authority's Smart Landscape Program gives out vouchers to use to purchase acceptable approved products. Hydro-Scape sees the vouchers as good as cash to make the transaction as easiest on the customer as possible.
Efficient water use doesn't mean asking clients to make sacrifices. Remember, including smart landscaping products saves the client money, on top of being smarter about how they use water. By choosing smart controllers, you save water, you save the customer money and you help ensure there is enough water to meet the needs of future generations!
Amy Conrad runs Conrad Public Relations, conradpr@cox.net
Municipal policies that restrict water use and pay property owners to install smart controllers didn't evolve overnight. Here's a bit of history from irrigation consultant Tom Ash, reprinted with the permission of HydroPoint Data Systems, Inc.
One example that shows the inadequacy of landscape water restrictions comes from Florida. Pinellas County commissioned a Boulder, Colo.-based water management consultant to evaluate conservation performance in the region.
A key finding was that 40 percent of single-family accounts did not adhere to the landscape water use restriction, which limited watering to one day per week.
The survey further revealed that these households were aware of the restriction and simply opted not to comply. Without enforcement and incentives, non-compliance with restrictions is likely to result in any community.
Providers with large service areas and limited resources find water use restrictions exceedingly difficult to enforce. In fact, restrictions have actually increased water use in some cases. During the severe drought of 2002, a municipal government in Colorado limited residential landscape watering to two days per week. Interestingly, water use actually increased by one percent, compared to prior year meter readings. In explaining this result, city officials surmise that residents attempted to maximize water consumption on designated watering days. That restrictions could actually increase demand was not really a surprise to many conservation professionals across the country they'd seen such results before.
Over and over, these traditional methods for reducing landscape water demand have proven to be difficult to enforce and monitor, expensive for long-term use, politically unpopular, and, in some cases, actually counter-productive.
Study after study has shown that nearly everyone, from novices to experts, over-waters. Why? Scheduling irrigation requires complex scientific equations that must be calculated daily as local weather changes. The fact is that accurately setting and adjusting irrigation schedules is difficult and time-consuming. It's time to stop deluding ourselves about the willingness and ability of homeowners and professionals to calculate efficient irrigation scheduling. That's why leading water providers have charted a new course for achieving their goals??????introducing smart, weather-based irrigation controllers.
Francisco Uviña, University of New Mexico
Hardscape Oasis in Litchfield Park
Ash Nochian, Ph.D. Landscape Architect
November 12th, 2025
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