Southern California HOA Moves to Digital Irrigation with NxEco Controllers
Gerald Star, President
Fallbrook Irrigation
Special to the Village News
Newport Beach, CA based NxEco Inc. announced on April 30, 2016 that the company recently installed 42 NxEco controllers for Cypress Point HOA. The expected annual water savings is about $8,000 per year for the 300 residence, private, gated community. The 42 units are only for their common areas, with many homeowners following suit because of the substantial savings provided by NxEco smart irrigation controllers.
The community was eligible for a rebate from the local water district which allowed an immediate return on their investment in NxEco controllers. The entire project was completed in less than one week which minimized downtime of the irrigation controllers and minimized resident inconvenience. The end result is an upgraded irrigation system designed to save water and save money while keeping the landscape beautiful.
This project uses the Nxeco commercial irrigation solution, NEAT (NxEco Environment Architecture Tools). NEAT includes controllers ranging from 8 to 36 zones, mobile APPs and central management tool SNAP. Nxeco controllers are designed for retrofitting existing irrigation systems and can be connected to the Internet by WiFi, Ethernet, or cellular. SNAP is web-based with no dedicated IT support needed.
SNAP Platform reduces water usage and landscape labor at the same time. NxEco controllers are easy to in is ideal for HOAs, schools, apartment complexes, shopping centers and other light commercial applications.
More details for the Cypress Point HOA retrofitting project are given below.
Situation to address:
Cypress Point HOA is a 300 home private community with extensive common areas
Before this retro-fitting, the association was spending over $60,000 per year to irrigate common areas
The drought and climate change caused much of the vegetation to begin drying out Challenges to Retrofitting:
No public WiFi network in place
All work had to be done within an active community
Solution:
42 NxEco Pro 12 zone smart irrigation controllers.
15 mobile hotspots to allow NxEco controllers to carry out monthly ET adjustments and daily weather adjustments
NxEco mobile App and NxEco web-based SNAP central management software, with no IT support needed
Costs:
The net cost of the retrofitting project
$0.00 after WaterSense Rebates from the local water district
The monthly cost of cellular data is $10.00 per hotspot
Results:
An estimated water bill reduction of $20 per zone, per year, totaling $8,000 per year
New state-of-the-art irrigation controllers and easy to use central management software Hundreds of labor hours per year to be saved for the landscape contractor with quicker response time