Northern California HOA Saves 9.1 Million Gallons and $44,000 Using HydroPoint WeatherTRAK

“Because of HydroPoint’s great product brand Cagwin & Dorward’s great staff, we have saved up to 30% of our water usage year after year.”

— Joan Murphy
National Director of Sustainability,
Adobe Creek Committee Chair

Challenge: Reduce Escalating Water Bills

Located in Petaluma, a historic northern California city, Adobe Creek Homeowners Association (HOA) is a community comprised of approximately 320 homes. With 190,000 square feet of irrigated landscape, water costs were the HOA’s third largest expense.

Like most of California, Petaluma has endured frequent and lengthy periods of drought conditions. To make matters worse, the HOA’s irrigation infrastructure was aging and inefficient, causing water bills to escalate. At risk of draining the HOA budget, Adobe Creek and its landscape contractor, Cagwin & Dorward, began evaluating smart water management solutions.

The HOA was looking for a system that could automate and deliver just the right amount of water for optimum plant health, and provide real-time visibility to track water usage. After evaluating several smart irrigation system options, the team chose HydroPoint WeatherTRAK smart irrigation controllers to reduce water use and cut costs.

Solution: WeatherTRAK Decreases Adobe Creek Water Usage by 30% a Year

HydroPoint WeatherTRAK is a cloud-based smart irrigation management system that provides Adobe Creek and its’ landscaping contractor with dashboards to track real-time water use for each water meter and controller. This technologically advanced solution includes Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to get the most accurate, high-resolution weather data on a daily basis. This data is used to optimize water scheduling and determine the exact volume of water required to beautifully maintain the landscape.

WeatherTRAK Central, the software component of WeatherTRAK, provides real-time visibility and control of the Adobe Creek irrigation system from an Internet browser, on any device. Whether at a desk or on the grounds, users can program a single site or a portfolio of sites, monitor performance, track asset inventories and water usage from anywhere, and receive notifications when there are problems, so issues can be remediated immediately before water is wasted and damage is done.

Installation Was Quick and Painless

With Cagwin & Dorward’s water management expertise, the installation of 11 WeatherTRAK smart controllers went seamlessly and the system was up and running within days. “Because of HydroPoint’s great product and Cagwin & Dorward’s great staff, we have saved up to 30% of our water usage year after year,” said Joan Murphy, National Director of Sustainability, Adobe Creek Committee Chair.

With the new WeatherTRAK smart controllers, the HOA has dramatically reduced annual water usage and lowered its water bills. The changes were so substantial that the complex achieved a 30% decrease in overall water usage and is saving 9.1 million gallons of water each year. In addition, Adobe Creek also banked water cost savings of $44,000. That’s money and water that would have gone right down the drain.