 July
Is Smart Irrigation Month
Everyone knows that July is the month for parades, fireworks, and
celebrating our nation’s independence, but are you aware that
July is also the peak water-use month in the majority of states
across the country? To help homeowners, communities, and businesses
better understand why and how to use less water when watering, the
Irrigation Association, a WaterSense partner, has designated July
as Smart Irrigation Month.
Smart Irrigation Month presents an opportunity for the irrigation
industry to communicate to consumers the importance of updating
their irrigation systems, learning more about water conservation,
and hiring a WaterSense irrigation
partner to design, install, and maintain water-efficient systems.
Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for roughly
one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 9 billion
gallons per day—a figure that can climb much higher as homeowners
maintain lawns during the hot summer months. As part of Smart Irrigation
Month, WaterSense and the Irrigation Association are offering these
five tips to help homeowners improve outdoor irrigation efficiency:
 1.
Water smarter, not harder
EPA estimates that more than 50 percent of landscape water is lost
due to evaporation, wind, or overwatering. If you water during the
heat of the day, for instance, as much as 30 percent of the water
will be lost to evaporation alone. To maximize both water savings
and your lawn’s health, coordinate watering with the weather—watering
on cool, windless mornings is best. While watering, make sure to
saturate the turf’s root zones, and then let the soil dry.
Watering too frequently can result in shallow roots and make your
lawn vulnerable to disease.
2. Ready, aim, sprinkle!
Sprinklers that water more pavement than grass are wasting water
and money! Whether you have a standard hose-fed sprinkler or an
automatic irrigation system, make sure that the water goes to where
it’s needed most. Different parts of your yard have different
water needs, so you should take into account sun exposure and your
plants’ water needs when setting up your irrigation system.
3. Less is more
Invest in a micro-irrigation system to water plants, trees, and
garden beds. Compared to conventional sprinklers, micro-irrigation
systems, such as drip hoses, use 20 to 50 percent less water by
minimizing evaporation, runoff, and overspray.
4. Automate your estate
Not sure when your lawn or garden needs to be watered? Consider
installing soil moisture sensors or weather-based controllers to
help streamline and simplify the watering process. These devices
ensure that your landscape is perfectly watered by adjusting your
irrigation schedule to changing soil moisture and weather conditions.
5. Hire a WaterSense irrigation partner
The smartest way to save the most water and money is to hire a WaterSense
irrigation partner to audit, design, install, or maintain your irrigation
system. These irrigation professionals have successfully completed
a WaterSense labeled certification program that emphasizes water
efficiency, so they bring targeted expertise to the job. Find
a WaterSense irrigation partner in your area (PDF) (9 pp, 194K,
About PDF).
Learn more about other
water-saving tips.
Attention Shoppers: WaterSense Labeled Products
Hitting Shelves Soon
 More
than 30 models of high-efficiency toilets (HETs), the first product
category to earn the WaterSense label, are now labeled and available
for purchase. Consumers will now have better toilet choices that
protect our water supply without sacrificing performance. Your plumber,
retailer, or local plumbing supply store can easily order any of
the WaterSense labeled toilets, and several models will be available
in retail stores later this summer.
Contrary to popular myths that less water leads to poor performance,
these WaterSense labeled HETs get the job done. Improvements in
design and technology since the first generation of “low-flow”
toilets in the early 1990s mean that today’s HETs bear little
resemblance to their predecessors. These toilets are independently
tested to meet performance standards as well as efficiency criteria,
which means they use less water than standard 1.6 gallons per flush
(gpf) toilets—and when compared to older models, the savings
really add up! Learn more about WaterSense
labeled HETs.
As with all toilets, WaterSense labeled HETs will be available
in a range of price points. And with water savings, as well as rebates
of $25 to $175 offered by many local utilities for replacing older
toilets, an HET can pay for itself in only a few years. In fact,
the average family of four could save approximately $2,000 over
the lifetime of a new HET by replacing just one older-model toilet.
Check out the most current list
of HETs that have earned the WaterSense label for efficiency
and performance, and then check with your plumber or a retail store
near you.
Partner Profile: San Antonio Water System
 Who
knew that flushing a potato could bring about such success? That’s
what new WaterSense partner San Antonio Water System (SAWS) discovered
with its “Kick the Can” toilet giveaway program. In the
first quarter of 2007 alone, SAWS gave away 15,000 high-efficiency
toilets (HETs) in its service area, creating one of Texas’
most progressive water-efficiency programs and helping customers
reduce their water bills. SAWS attributes much of the program’s
popularity to an online
video clip that demonstrates the flushing power 
of the free HETs by flushing a full-sized Russet potato without
a hitch.
The Kick the Can program, which began distributing HETs in January
2007, offers SAWS’s residential water customers up to two free
Caroma Sydney 305 dual-flush HETs per household. Customers can rest
assured that these HETs are both water-efficient and high-performing,
as the Caroma Sydney 305 recently earned the WaterSense label. SAWS
has offered toilet rebate programs in the past, but it found that
close to 80 percent of participants were replacing toilets only
because they were broken, and not because they were inefficient.
Today’s program combines offering free HETs with education
about superior performance. As a result, SAWS has seen its retrofits
climb from 5,000 in 1998 to 19,000 in 2006. SAWS anticipates distributing
more than 30,000 HETs in 2007.
Even more important to the program’s success is its community-based
marketing system. The program, called “Season to Save,”
pairs nonprofit community organizations, such as church groups,
Boy Scout troops, and homeowners associations, with SAWS to help
it market its HETs. Members of these organizations go door to door
from September to December to enroll customers who live in homes
built prior to 1992. The organizations earn $25 for each toilet
they help to distribute, often earning tens of thousands of dollars
for their efforts. “Seventy organizations participated this
past year,” said Eddie Wilcut, conservation manager for SAWS.
“We couldn’t do this without the partnerships.”
On the commercial side, SAWS has performed 60,000 apartment retrofits
since 1998 and has now retrofitted every school, college, and university
in the San Antonio area. Additionally, 1,200 restaurants and three
hotels have participated in the program. SAWS executed a turnkey
project with the Hilton Palacio del Rio, a high-end hotel that had
been experiencing problems with its toilets. Hilton completely retrofitted
the Palacio del Rio with HETs from SAWS and hasn’t had a problem
since. SAWS hopes that the growing success of its HET retrofits
will encourage more commercial properties to participate in the
program.
SAWS is also working to share its success and spread the word,
and it has already collaborated with utilities in Austin, Dallas,
and several other municipalities. As a new WaterSense promotional
partner, SAWS will now have many opportunities to communicate its
lessons learned. For now, it is safe to say that SAWS has its hands
full. “The other day, traffic was backed up a mile to get the
toilets,” Wilcut said. “We know that eventually the program
will have done what it’s intended to do and should move on.
But we don’t want anyone to step up later and say ‘We
didn’t know about that.’ We want every door to be knocked
on at least once.”
WaterSense Labels Two Certification Programs for
Irrigation Auditors
 Fore!
With the recent additions of the Irrigation Association’s (IA’s)
Certified Golf Irrigation Auditor and Certified Landscape Irrigation
Auditor programs, the number of WaterSense labeled professional
certification programs is up to four. In May, these programs joined
two other previously labeled IA programs—an irrigation contractor
and an irrigation designer program—in earning the WaterSense
label. WaterSense is excited to announce its new partnerships with
landscape and golf irrigation auditors who are certified through
these programs to provide quality service for residential, commercial,
and golf irrigation system audits.
Professionals who passed exams for either of these auditor programs
after April 1, 2007, are eligible to apply for WaterSense partnership.
Auditors who passed exams prior to April 1, 2007, are eligible for
partnership upon renewal in 2008. As these irrigation auditors become
WaterSense partners, consumers will soon be able to search our online
listing to find a local partner nearby.
An irrigation auditor can:
- Analyze landscape or turf irrigation water use
- Make maintenance recommendations
- Perform water audits
- Develop irrigation base schedules
A system audit is an important part of maintaining an irrigation
system and should be performed periodically to check for malfunctions
and to ensure efficient watering. When performing an audit, a WaterSense
irrigation partner will run a series of procedures to collect and
compile data that show how uniformly an irrigation system is distributing
water. WaterSense irrigation partners can then provide customers
with suggestions and recommendations for saving on water bills,
as well as achieving greener, healthier golf courses or lawns.
Featured Product: High-Efficiency Bathroom
Sink Faucets and Accessories
What greets you every morning when you brush your teeth and
will soon bear the WaterSense label? High-efficiency
bathroom sink faucets and faucet accessories! EPA is pleased
to announce that it has developed a draft specification for
these products to receive the WaterSense label. Once the draft
specification is finalized later this year, manufacturers
will be able to start certifying their faucets and faucet
accessories to bear the WaterSense label. You should be able
to find WaterSense labeled faucets and faucet accessories,
such as aerators and laminar flow devices, on retail shelves
starting in 2008!
WaterSense Labeled Faucets and Accessories by
the Numbers
- 1.5: Maximum flow rate of WaterSense
labeled faucets and accessories in gallons per minute (gpm).
- 32: Percent decrease in flow rate from
standard bathroom sink faucets.
- 570: Gallons of water a household could
save annually by retrofitting bathroom sink faucets to meet
the draft WaterSense specification.
- 11 or 13: Months it would take to recover
the cost of a WaterSense labeled high-efficiency bathroom
sink faucet through water and energy savings (11 months
for electric water heating systems, 13 months for natural
gas water heating systems).
In keeping with the WaterSense philosophy to label products
that are at least 20 percent more efficient than conventional
models, the proposed flow rate for these faucets and faucet
accessories is set at 1.5 gpm—a 32 percent reduction
from the standard bathroom sink faucet flow rate of 2.2 gpm.
For homes that do not need new sink installations, aerators
are sold for a few dollars apiece at local retailers and can
easily be used to retrofit existing faucets to meet the draft
WaterSense specification and save you water and money. Both
bathroom sink faucets and faucet accessories with the WaterSense
label will perform well, even in homes with low water pressure.
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| If every bathroom sink faucet
in the United States were retrofitted to meet draft
WaterSense specifications, we could save more than
60 billion gallons—that's enough water to supply
Honolulu for a year! |
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