The lawns have turned green and the outdoor temperatures are on the rise, so it won’t be long now before many Kane County folks start up their sprinkler systems for the season. As an EPA WaterSense partner, Kane County offers the reminder that a little bit of maintenance goes a long way when it comes to a home’s irrigation system.

May is “Sprinkler Spruce-Up” month through the EPA’s WaterSense program, so take the time to inspect, connect, direct, and select your way to a water-saving spring!

Residential outdoor use consumes 9 billion gallons of water in the U.S. each year. Yet, an estimated 50 percent of the water we use outdoors is wasted due to evaporation, wind, or runoff caused by inefficient irrigation methods and systems. Having a timer on your sprinkler system isn’t a magic cure, either. A clock timer-controlled irrigation system that isn’t properly programmed or maintained can waste as much as 30,000 gallons of water annually—that’s a lot of extra dollars on your water bill!

Before you start watering this spring, spruce up your irrigation system by remembering four simple steps:

1. Inspect. Check your system for clogged, broken or missing sprinkler heads. If you aren’t very handy, find a certified irrigation professional to do the work for you.
2. Connect. Examine points where the sprinkler heads connect to pipes and hoses. If water pools in your landscape or you have large soggy areas, you could have a leak in your system. A leak as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen (or 1/32nd of an inch) can waste about 6,300 gallons of water per month!
3. Direct. Are you watering the driveway, house, or sidewalk instead of your yard? Redirect sprinklers to apply water only to the landscape.
4. Select. An improperly scheduled irrigation controller can waste a lot of water and money. Don’t use the same schedule for the whole watering year—adapt to the changing weather, and always be sure to follow your municipality’s watering regulations.

For more outdoor watering tips from the EPA’s WaterSense program, please visit www.epa.gov/watersense/outdoor.

WaterSense, a partnership program sponsored by EPA, seeks to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by offering people a simple way to use less water with water-efficient products, new homes, and services. Since the program’s inception in 2006, WaterSense has helped consumers save hundreds of billions of gallons of water and billions in water and energy bills.