Remote Water Management Provides Efficiencies for Small Team
At a growing city in Texas, IQ4 Central Control is proving to be a time-saving technology the parks maintenance department can depend on to manage hundreds of irrigation controllers with thousands of zones spread out over a large area. IQ4 has saved countless hours of drive time, wear and tear on vehicles and made it easier to quickly manage schedule changes.
The city is responsible for maintaining all municipal building grounds, fire stations, parks, city-owned recreational areas and athletic fields, and some medians and rights-of-way. With a small staff, never-ending maintenance schedules, and unplanned emergencies, the city's parks maintenance supervisor can use every time-saving strategy in their arsenal to get everything done. IQ4 Central Control is one of those tools.
They started using IQ3 about five years ago and recently upgraded to IQ4 and plans to expand its use. The city manages about 300 controllers with over 4,000 zones. Only a portion connect to IQ4 currently, and the city is expanding its use by upgrading existing wired controllers from various Rain Bird competitors to ESP-LXME controllers with IQ NCC cartridges. As part of the expansion plan, they will install master valves and flow sensors for added protection and flow sensing.
IQ4 Saves Labor, Fuel and Truck Maintenance Costs
Remote irrigation management of athletic fields and parks is essential. When irrigation schedules need to change to accommodate events, games and maintenance events, manual edits made on the computer can be made quickly. The city saves labor costs, fuel and wear and tear on vehicles. The team also saves programs for routine events, like resodding.
SimulStations™ Helps Prioritize Irrigation Zones To Meet Customer Requests
The city uses SimulStations to schedule irrigation. Using SimulStations, IQ4 uses the system's total flow capacity and each zone's flow requirement to stack programs maxing out system capacity, shortening the watering time. SimulStations also allows the team to prioritize certain zones to run before others. In one location, there is a footbridge that kids use to get to school, and at the same time, the sprinklers were running, making the bridge slippery. With IQ4, it was easy to set a higher priority for this zone, and watering completes before they use it.
Expanding Flow Management
As the city expands its use of the IQ4, it is also adding flow sensors to more systems. A few areas are currently using flow sensors, and the city is alerted to breaks which is a benefit to a small team that does not physically get to each park on a frequent basis. This feature alone can save thousands of gallons of water and provides protection for structures and landscaping which could get damaged if a pipe breaks.
IQ4 helps the team manage the expected and unexpected. It is an essential tool that enables the small team to get more done and accommodate schedule changes easily without adding more drive time to their day.