Smart Irrigation Technology

[Music Playing] David Epstein: I am here today with Jim Ralfe and we are going to be talking about smart technology for irrigation systems. Tell me a little bit about how this smart system works. Jim Ralfe: Most irrigation control is a set for every day, every other day or every third day. With the new technology, it only waters when it needs it according to weather conditions. David Epstein: Do I have a weather station here at my house? Jim Ralfe: No. The weather stations located nearby, it is a regional weather station that is shed by a bunch of homonous. We broadcast the weather data every hour from that weather station to this receiver and it makes a judgment when you need water based on those weather conditions. David Epstein: In the summer, thunderstorm, at the weather station, they may get two inches and I might not get anything so what do we do about that? Jim Ralfe: We localized rainfall with a tipping bucket rain gauge and this has a little spoon in it that measures the rainfall down for over 107 inch. So will mount that here on your house and it will measure rainfall right here at the specific location. David Epstein: I want to conserve water. That is what I am trying to do. So how is this help out? Jim Ralfe: With the ET manager, we watched for Evapo-transpiration. Let us say amount of water that evaporates from this soil over a given period of time. Once we reached its threshold, we allow the irrigation to turn on and put that water back. So we are not over watering the plants, we are giving them just what they need. And that reduces water bills, reduces fertilizer usage and just encourages proper growth of the landscapes. Typically, we have been seeing savings anywhere between 30 and 70% over normal water use. Is there anything David Epstein: Is there anything I have to do with the controls at all? Jim Ralfe: You do not have to make any changes throughout the year of the irrigation system. David Epstein: If I have another system other than Rain Bird, will the system work with that? Jim Ralfe: The ET Manager works with any irrigation control. David Epstein: Does it help with my zones at all? Jim Ralfe: It is not done with zones. It is basically takes the worst case scenario and your yard and we then we program the rest of the zones in the yard around that worst case scenario. David Epstein: Sometimes a thunderstorm, you can get an insure rain of 15 minutes but a lot of that ends are planning off. Jim Ralfe: We can set a setting in the ET manager to accommodate for only a certain amount of the rainfall in a given hour. David Epstein: So what kind of notes about run off? Jim Ralfe: It knows about run off. David Epstein: That is awesome. Thank you Jim. [Music Playing]