Underground Irrigation Systems
Buyer Beware!

Another summer has come and gone, but the bills for high water use during this past drought continue. As the hot weather stayed with  us this year, increased pumpage due to irrigation strained our capacity to produce. Pumpage rates topped out at over 20,000 gallons per minute during our peak demand.

A typical sprinkler head uses in the neighborhood of four gallons per minute. A typical homeowner who sprinkles for thirty minutes uses 120 gallons per head every time the system is used. A typical system with twenty heads would use 2400 gallons each time it is used. If this system were programmed for every other day, a homeowner could easily use 144,000 gallons during a billing cycle for sprinkling alone! If the system were used for an hour, a whopping 288,000 gallons would be used!

As drought conditions continue, homeowners allow their sprinklers to stay on for longer and longer periods of time. The resulting water use is quite large with the resulting higher block rate dramatically increasing the amount billed. We urge all consumers to closely monitor their sprinkler usage. Reading the meter before and after a typical use will give you an idea of how much water your particular system uses.