Surviving Climate Change: Water(ing) & Earth
Automating and lowering water usage for your lawn
I hate to be a downer, but, if you haven't already heard, humanity is in a literal Code Red. Places that shouldn't flood are flooding. Places that shouldn't be on fire are ablaze (see our post on maintaining your indoor air quality). And in the West Coast of the United States, droughts are so bad that it's threatening our ability to produce power from dams.
So, what better time than now to talk about lawns. (I can't tell if I'm joking.) Hear me out: in the US, watering lawns is the biggest usage of household water consumption, then toilets (more on that in another post). In fact, Americans use 20 TRILLION gallons of water each year to water their lawn. To put that in perspective the US agriculture industry uses about (only!) 30 TRILLION gallons a year.
Key actions summary on watering your lawn
What’s the goal? Reduce your water usage and maybe help the planet.
Key takeaway: Reconsider the lawn and get smarter about watering it.
Why does this matter? As water rates inevitably rise, it'll be critical to get smarter when it comes to water maintenance and lawn functionality and yes helping others and Earth.
If you don’t have a lawn, good for you! Still there are some tips below that can help you think about overall water usage.
Maintenance To Dos:
Replace it? Is your lawn purely for aesthetics? If so, consider updating to drought-friendly landscaping or astro turf. Here’s a step by step guide from the CA Dept of Water Resources.
Monitor & Automate - Install a digital watering system for your lawn and garden which can monitor water usage & automate watering. Make it smart with devices that can be shut off remotely and know not to water depending on weather conditions.
Contain where you water - Ensure that water is falling only on things that need to be watered (e.g. vs your pavement). Make it smart by considering smart sprinkler devices that use digital visual fields or zones to water (e.g. Oto Lawn)
You can get more water conservation tips from CA Department of Water Resources here.
Maintenance To Dos:
Ok let's dive in...
Action: Replace it?
Consider updating your lawn to drought-friendly landscaping or astro turf.
How functional is your lawn or is it for pure aesthetics? You can probably measure this by the amount of time a human being spends on it.
Growing up in LA - many people had front lawns for pure aesthetics and then a backyard lawn for actual use and play. As droughts become more frequent and persistent - LA Metropolitan Water District has now been paying residents to convert their lawns to save them money on importing water. Why? 50% of increasingly expensive water being used by households was going to lawns and landscaping!
There’s a long history for having large unused lawns so that cycle needs to break. If you’d still prefer the look of a lush green lawn, I highly recommend getting astro turf. It can look very real nowadays and is super low maintenance. In any case, if you want to get more background - I highly recommend listening to this Freakonomics podcast episode “How Stupid Is Our Obsession With Lawns?”
Also, here’s a step by step guide to replace your lawn with drought resistant landscaping from the CA Dept of Water Resources.
Action: Monitor & Automate
If you still choose to keep a lawn—because feeling freshly cut grass on your bare feet is the only way you truly know you’re still alive—then really think about how to monitor your water usage.
You can easily install a digital watering system which can monitor water usage & automate watering. We use this Orbit Watering Timer ($30 on Amazon)
To further automate to save you time and water consumption make it smarter with devices that can be shut off remotely and know not to water depending on weather conditions. A friend recommended the Rachio 3 which he says has worked well especially in terms of being intelligent enough not to run it when it rains (which oddly did in June in LA). It’s a bit pricier but planning to check it out. ($263 on Amazon)
Generally, you want to water the lawn early in the morning or late at night and avoid watering during windy and wet days. Set sprinklers to run at night between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m otherwise you can lose up to 25% of water due to evaporation.
Action: Contain where you water
Ensure that water is falling only on things that need to be watered (e.g. vs your pavement). Make it smart by considering smart sprinkler devices that use digital visual fields or zones to water.
I remember as a kid during another drought when you would get fined if there was water going into your driveway and into the street. It really is a waste. So ensure water is only hitting the soil or even more precisely to just the spots that need to be watered.
We just invested in Oto Lawn, which arrived a few weeks ago and so far so good! Started as a kickstarter - this is a really good example of actual smart home technology. It completely automates watering, it is intelligent to know not to water when raining, can be controlled remotely and can also update itself. As a bonus it’s also solar powered and you can add fertilizers to the system to keep your lawn healthier.
Next post: Simplifying your maintenance plan
I received feedback (please give us feedback!) that the maintenance plan template is a bit overwhelming. To make it more useful and easy to use, I’ll go through the basic components of it and how to modify and customize it based on your home.