With the likelihood of another hot dry summer with the drought continuing, you may be wondering how you can decrease your water consumption this year. The staff at True Value in Plain City are experts at sprinklers and yard care and they have some tips on how to decrease your water output.

Sprinklers can be one of our largest water usages at a home. Let’s say you have a simple yard set up that has six sprinkler zones, two spray zones, and four rotary zones, with a one-inch point of connection from secondary water at 60 pounds per square inch (psi), which is a fairly common size yard. This system will push 18 gallons per minute.

If you water three times per week and have 15-18 minutes per spray head zone and 36 minutes per rotary head zone, you would use 3240 gallons per cycle and 9720 gallons per week. Yes, you read that right. Nearly 10,000 gallons! To give you an idea, you would need to shower for 65 hours to use 10,000 gallons of water. That is a lot of water.

Here are some things you can do to save water. Take out the grass on your parking strip. This can save 1000 gallons per week. Also changing over your flower/garden zones to a drip system saves 90% of the water usage and is much healthier than a spray system plus you won’t have spray shooting up on your house.

Another great trick is to have two start times for each zone. Because of the high clay content in our soil, much of the water drains off the soil instead of soaking in. By having two start times for each zone the soil will more efficiently soak in the water. So if your start time is 5 a.m. and for simplicity, each zone runs for 20 minutes, you will be better off running each zone for 10 minutes and then just running them twice, one at 5 a.m. and the other at 7 a.m. You will find you need less water when you do it this way.

Kentucky Bluegrass or a variety that includes bluegrass is most common for yards. This grass can go dormant when the temperatures get too high. It doesn’t matter how much water you put on dormant grass, it won’t turn green. It is a good idea to check your soil moisture by taking out a plug of grass or getting a hydrometer in to see if the soil is still wet the evening prior to watering. Your brown grass could just be dormant, or you might have lawn pests to be treated. Check with your Plain City True Value for more help and tips.

TRUE VALUE
801-827-0990
www.plaincitytruevalue.com
Your Local Hardware Store
3627 W .2600 N.,Plain City