Swapped my lawn sprinkler timer after realizing I was watering the pavement for 2 years

I used to run my sprinklers at 6 AM for 30 minutes every day, but after a drought alert last summer in Phoenix, I checked my water bill and saw it jumped $40 a month. Turned out half the water was hitting the driveway because the heads were misaligned and the timer didn't have a smart feature to adjust for rain. Has anyone else had luck with those cheap soil moisture sensors for cutting down waste?

2 comments

2 Comments

kim9637d ago

Drove me crazy when I figured out my sprinkler was basically giving the sidewalk a daily shower for a year. I installed a cheap moisture sensor from Home Depot and it actually works okay, but now my neighbor thinks I'm lazy because the grass is brown some days. The real kicker was when I watched the sprinkler come on during a thunderstorm and just stood there yelling at it like it could hear me. Saved about $30 a month after I fixed everything though, so at least my wallet is less mad than I am.

parker_thomas7d ago

Yeah the money part stings but @kim963 honestly it's the sheer waste of water that gets me. You ever think about how much extra electricity it takes to pump that water too? It's not just the water bill you're wasting. That thunderstorm thing happened to me once but I just unplugged the whole system and let the rain do its thing. Brown grass is way better than a green sidewalk and a flooded driveway. Plus you're probably helping your local water table more than you know by letting the grass go dormant sometimes.