|| Home Page ||
|| Contact Denver Office || Contact Las Vegas Office || Contact Omaha Office ||

Welcome Home Magazine
79 Spyglass Drive
Littleton, Colorado 80123-6657
Phone: (303) 797-8400
Email: jim@welcomehomemag.com
Copyright 2009 Welcome Home Magazine

Grass is dumb. Water 2 minutes less. Your lawn won’t notice.
Welcome to summer in Denver’s semi-arid climate, where we must always use water wisely.
Denver Water, the water utility for 1.2 million people in Denver and many surrounding suburbs, asks you to be smart when you turn on the tap. Our rallying cry is Use Only What You Need, and you’ll save water and money if you adopt that philosophy.
The summer watering season starts May 1 and ends Oct. 1. There are no assigned watering days, but watering two days a week should be your goal. A third day is OK during hot, dry periods. And this year, try shaving two minutes off each zone of your sprinkler system. Your lawn won’t notice the difference.
Tips to help you use only what you need:
S Clip out the chart below for suggested watering times.
S Your lawn might not be as thirsty as you think. Try this: Walk across your lawn, and then look back for footprints. If you don’t see any, no water is needed.
S Get to know your timer. Never set it and forget it. Adjust your watering times to account for weather conditions, sunny and shady locations, as well as type of plants. If your lawn looks healthy, try reducing these times by two minutes per zone.
S Try watering on cycles – five minutes on, five minutes off – to avoid runoff and increase healthy, nourishing penetration into the soil.
S If you don’t have an automatic sprinkler system, you can regulate your usage with an inexpensive hose timer.
S If you have a sprinkler system and a large lot, you might want to consider a weather-based smart controller, or ET controller. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a measure of water lost from soil by evaporation and transpiration (usage by plants). By taking into account air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind and rainfall, an ET controller calculates the degree of evapotranspiration and allocates the proper amount of water for your lawn.
S Denver Water offers several rebates to save money on rain sensors and weather-based smart controllers for your sprinkler system, as well as on water-efficient appliances. Visit denverwater.org for rebate information and forms.