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Listen to what your yard is telling you:

Pay attention to your yard. If you can walk across the lawn and you are sinking on non-watering days, you are over watering. If moss is growing in shaded areas, you are over watering. If the landscape is dying, you just may be under-watering. Remember, landscapes are very resilient. Unless it dries to a crunchy brown, chances are that it will make a recovery, especially long established yards.

Are we finally able to see some light at the end of the LED tunnel ?
Leaning slowly to the future of :

LED LOW VOLTAGE LANDSCAPE LIGHTING

LED lighting has been surging forward for several years, but the low voltage LED industry is finally starting to catch up. Many companies, most based overseas are producing LED bulbs that plug right into your low voltage landscape lighting fixtures, but not without some reliability issues. While the newest wave of low voltage LED bulbs are greatly improved, and coming down in price, they are not completely proven when mated to higher than recommended wattage input. While many of these LED elements are rated to 50 thousand hours, some of the technology is less than satisfactorily proven under the applications that they are introduced into.

One of the major issues are that LED components are not recommended for outdoor usage. While most fixtures are sealed against the elements, heat , organically produced moisture on the outside, and moisture from irrigation systems may cause condensation inside the fixture causing these LED elements to be compromised.

In the past, incandescent low voltage lighting systems are mathematically calculated to determine their proper installation. Several factors are taken into consideration when they are calculated. Wattage from the transformer, length of a wire run, total amount of watts per run, and gauge of wire are some of the factors used when installation is planned. Incandescent bulbs have a life expectancy of between 2000 and 3000 hours. In a standard install, if the bulbs are slightly under ‘juiced’, their life span can double, but if slightly over ‘juiced’ it can be cut in half.

When replacing incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, it will, to put it simply. over ‘juice’ the LED elements. LED elements are touted to operate properly when they receive between six and 25 volts of power, where incandescent bulbs operate properly using between 9 and 12 volts. To further add to the complicated mix, most LED bulbs can only function properly when mated to a magnetic power supply.

Several companies are now producing low voltage fixtures which contain an complete LED retrofit. They are designed to ‘regulate’ the voltage within the fixture. They are boasting 50,000 hour guarantees.

For some, the cost of these fixtures can be a bit prohibitive. If one does the math, the savings can be recouped over time. An incandescent fixture might cost $ 50.00 compared to $ 125.00 for an identical LED fixture. The consumer savings starts in the maintenance, or lack there of. 2000 hour bulbs cost $5.00 each which can save the total cost of an LED fixture over it’s life span, not to mention the savings in energy (20-35 watts incandescent vs. 3-6 watts LED).

While none of these items are fool proof, there seems to be greater success when using this type of LED retrofit. Like many other cutting edge industries, the technology seems to be constantly evolving. As advancements are being made, the prices seem to be dropping. At this time, the conclusion would be that if you can afford the up front cost for retro fitted LED fixtures, they will pay for themselves over time.

Brought to you by The Sprinker and Lighting Doctor Neal Kaufman

The Sprinkler Doctor

23705 Van Owen Street #213
West Hills, CA 91307
Phone Number: (818) 992-6353
Email Us At The Sprinkler and Lighting Doctor

CHECK OUT THE COMPLETE STORY BELOW:

DON’T FORGET TO WATER

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The future of landscape irrigation:

Use the technology available today until technology and legislation get on the same page.

In the last several years, ‘Smart Timers’ were created to minimize water run off and over saturation. There are several ways that these timers have this capability. Some utilize water sensors buried into the soil. Others use a satellite fed program to tell the timer what the weather pattern is going to be, which makes them as reliable as the local weather forecaster. Some actually have a ‘weather station’ that supplies signals directly to the time clock. No matter which technology provides these timers with their information, they are still not as ‘smart’ as their owner provided the owner actually takes the time to understand their operation. Most ‘smart timers’ limit the watering period to a pre-determined total based on either ; what type of sprinkler that station uses, what type of soil that station waters, and a pre-determined ‘run-off’ time. You can be the ‘smart’ in your timer.

The first step in understanding how to be the ‘smart’ in your sprinkler timer is to understand how the timer works. Read the directions. Every timer made requires 3 components to tell it exactly what to do. It must be told what time to start, what day to water, and how much time to water for, period. There are no tricks. It is that simple.

Take the time to ‘MAP’ your yard:

Turn the sprinklers on one station at a time, and take some notes. Most modern irrigation systems have lawns watering separately from flower beds. Drip systems should be segregated from fan or long range heads. Pay attention to where the sun hits in every zone. If you have a lawn area that gets long sun exposure mated with a lawn section that gets minimum exposure, note it. Keep in mind that the axis of the sun changes with the seasons. Make a note if the area watered is graded (slopes), and how severe the grade is.

Investigate local jurisdiction watering guide lines:

Different municipalities have watering restrictions. Some do not have any restrictions, but this does not excuse anyone from wasting what will soon be one of our planet’s most valuable resources. Many communities were ‘planted’ before the planet was so overly inhabited, and put in places that are natural deserts. Attempting to adapt lush landscaping into these desert areas require vast amounts of irrigation. Let’s be smart about it. Remember, unless you are pumping you own water out of a well, you pay dearly for the water.

Cycle watering:

A very common concept that smart timers utilize is cycle watering. If you tell your smart timer that a zone requires 10 minutes in a watering cycle, and have determined that the water starts to pool or run off in 2 minutes time , your timer will only allow that zone to water for 2 minutes and will tell it to water 5 times with a programmed gap between the watering cycles. This is cycle watering. It is simply watering in bursts rather than flooding. It is a common practice on slopes or hillsides, and will keep the water from running off the ground. Another good usage of cycling the watering is if there is adobe type soil with slow drainage. Soils like this create a full sponge effect. Once the ground is saturated, the water will run off.

Using multiple programs:

Most higher end timers have more than 1 program. It gives us the option to have programs that water different frequencies. Here is where the ‘yard map’ comes into play. Let’s just say that we have 3 zones to water. Zone 1 is a lawn zone using standard fan heads, zone 2 is a drip zone that waters flower beds, and zone 3 is a slope of ground cover using long range heads. The lawn zone sits in the sun all day, the flowers and the hill get a half day of sun. The city in which we live says we can only water 3 days a week. We decide that the lawn is the only area which needs that amount of time, and the flowers and slope only need 2 days of watering which we are going to cycle. If this were the case, we might run the lawn at 6:00am on the allotted 3 watering days and we might run the flowers and hill at 5:00am, 6:15am, and 7:30am for 2 of the allotted days.

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