Yard irrigation accounts for the lion’s share of household water use—around 70% on average!
Needless to say, if you want to save water around your house, start by ensuring that your irrigation system is sound and functioning optimally.
With most irrigation cycles occurring overnight or early morning—while you’re asleep—leaks may go unnoticed for months or longer.
The good news is that your Flume holds the power to help you troubleshoot and keep an eye on your irrigation system, saving you water and money, and protecting your home.
Even without your irrigation running, Flume will detect valve leaks, letting you know if you have a problem.
But the following tips will help ensure your irrigation system is healthy while running and also help you avoid future leaks:
1. Grab a notebook and start by running your irrigation cycles. Note the start/stop time – you can cross reference this time with gallons used on your flume app.
2. Beginning at each valve, check for leaks.
3. Next, check drip lines, emitters for clogs, leaks, breaks. Especially look for old emitters that are still running where plants no longer exist. Your local hardware store sells inexpensive plugs that can replace these old emitters, as well as joints that allow you to patch any leaks due to splits in your irrigation lines.
4. If you have sprinklers, observe each for under-coverage or overspray that wastes water. Additionally, you can check for clogged heads and address them by unscrewing the top, cleaning and inspecting internal parts, like the screen. Once done, re-install, run and adjust or replace.
5. Be sure to reference your Flume’s detail-minute screen as cycles start and stop to input overall use during these cycles. That way you’ll know how much an average cycle uses. You’ll also know your maximum gallon-per-minute (gpm) rate, which will help you optimize your high flow alerts.
NOTE: If you want to expedite the process of checking cycles you can run each manually and note use per minute, then apply to the duration of the cycle.
6. With your maximum rate per minute by zone (i.e. let’s say 5 gpm) you can adjust your high leak alerts to alert you if that gpm is exceeded. This will let you know if you have a leak in the future without getting notified every time your irrigation runs.
7. Any questions? Visit our help page or your irrigation systems manufacturer’s page.
