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“Our state is on track to lose 10% of its water supply by 2040.” So said California Governor Gavin Newsom in a speech announcing incentives to encourage the replacement of water-thirsty lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping. And California is not alone. One state over, the Nevada Legislature recently enacted a law prohibiting the use of irrigation for non-functional (i.e., purely ornamental) grass at commercial properties.

States are getting serious about water-wise landscaping and are making efforts to ensure outdoor spaces are more sustainable. This is apparent not only from the laws they’re passing, but also the cash rebates that many municipalities are offering to encourage owners and managers to transition their grounds to drought-tolerant landscaping.

These rebates are just one of the many benefits of switching to eco-friendly grounds. Water conservation and reduced maintenance costs are two other plusses. To reap these benefits and make the most of sustainable grounds and landscapes, building owners and managers should keep the following methods and tools—and rebates—in mind.

Drought Tolerant Landscaping: It’s Not Turf

According to the Nevada Water Authority, approximately 825,000 gallons of water per year can be saved for every 15,000 square feet of land converted to water-smart landscaping.

Grass and lawns are the most water thirsty of landscaped areas. In fact, according to the Nevada Water Authority, approximately 825,000 gallons of water per year can be saved for every 15,000 square feet of land converted to water-smart landscaping. That’s a lot of water—and money—saved.

One way to create water-smart landscapes is to replace turf with xeriscape, terrain that requires little or no irrigation and is typically comprised of native and adaptive plants. These plants and shrubs naturally thrive in dry conditions. They’re also more resilient and can be as aesthetically pleasing as more water-thirsty options. Planting native or adapted plant species that are well-suited to the local climate also reduces the need for mowing, chemical applications, and other types of maintenance.

According to the Pacific Institute, commercial property managers can reduce landscape water use by 70% to 80% just by replacing turf with efficiently irrigated, climate-appropriate plants. Here are a few of the rebates available for turf replacement:

Southern Nevada Water Authority has a turf rebate program that offers rebates for businesses, HOAs, and multifamily properties. The rebate is $3 per square foot of grass that’s removed and replaced with desert landscaping and is available for up to 10,000 square feet of landscape per fiscal year.
Southern California’s West Basin Municipal Water District is offering rebates starting at $4 per square foot to remove non-essential grass on public properties in their service area. This offer includes free professional advice to help design new, water-wise landscapes. Any federal, state, or city property in the district’s area may qualify for rebates on parcels that range from 250 square feet to 200,00 square feet, with a maximum rebate value of $800,000.
The City of Sacramento offers Turf Conversion Rebates where you can convert to drought-tolerant landscaping and receive up to $1.50 per square foot of replaced turf (up to $50,000).

Smart Irrigation, Smart Savings

The first lawn sprinkler was patented in 1871, and it proved revolutionary in cementing the popularity of grass lawns—despite its inefficient design. Since then, the humble sprinkler has undergone several improvements, including the oscillating sprinkler in 1948 and the introduction of time-based controls in the 1960s. Yet studies show that despite these advancements, as much as 50% of the water used by modern sprinklers is wasted through overwatering. But new advances in sprinkler technology are changing that.

Smart irrigation controllers are among these game-changing technologies. Far more effective than time-based control, smart irrigation controllers optimize water use by employing advanced technology and data analysis. They consider factors such as weather conditions, soil moisture levels, and plant water requirements to ensure precise and efficient irrigation. Most smart irrigation controllers are either weather based or soil moisture based. Both types can tailor watering schedules and run times for a sprinkler or drip system.

Weather-based controllers use various signal technologies to gather temperature, humidity, and even solar radiation readings (typically from a local weather station). The controllers use this data to automatically adjust irrigation schedules, ensuring the landscape receives the optimal amount of water for the current climate conditions.

Soil moisture-based controllers, on the other hand, take a more direct approach. These controllers utilize soil moisture sensors, placed underground, to gather data from the root zone of plants. The sensors estimate the soil volumetric water content—the portion of the total volume of soil occupied by water—and adjust watering accordingly.

The water-saving potential of these smart irrigation controllers and sensors is substantial, as was powerfully demonstrated by an EPA study of an office complex in Plano, Texas. The owners of the complex installed a weather-based irrigation controller, along with rain and freeze sensors. In addition, they committed to regular maintenance and repair work. The EPA study found that after these changes, the complex reduced its water use by 12.5 million gallons of water in the first year alone, for a savings of $47,000. The upgrades paid for themselves in only 1.5 years.

Currently there are multiple local and regional agencies offering rebates on both weather-based and soil moisture-based irrigation controllers, including these water districts:

In Utah, the Washington County Water Conservancy District has a $75 rebate for irrigation smart controllers.
The Santa Clara Water District offers up to $50 for rain sensors and between $300 and $2000 (depending on the number of stations) for weather-based irrigation controllers.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California offers rebates of $35 per station for irrigation soil sensors and weather sensors as part of its Water$mart program. This program covers parts of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties.
In Texas, the Water Wise Austin program offers rebates of $300 each for flow sensors, electronic devices that measure and regulate the flow rate of water within pipes, a critical technology for conservation. The program also covers 50% of the equipment cost, per station, for central computer irrigation controller systems, up to $10,000.

Irrigation Drip Systems

While most sprinkler systems could benefit from an upgrade, one approach to watering has long been known to be highly efficient: drip irrigation. This type of irrigation, which has existed for decades in one form or another, exceeds 90% efficiency, making it an effective, well-established technology for reducing overall water use. Drip systems are especially effective for sloped areas, due to the slow rate of water application. In these instances, the water soaks in instead of running off, avoiding soil erosion and water waste.

Although, just like sprinklers, drip systems do need monitoring and maintenance (to ensure they don’t become clogged or spring leaks), they offer other advantages in addition to cost savings:

Soil Moisture Retention: By providing water directly to the root zone, drip irrigation helps maintain consistent soil moisture levels, preventing excessive drying or waterlogging. Maintaining optimal soil moisture levels in this way contributes to the resilience of plants during drought conditions.
Weed Control: Another advantage of drip irrigation systems is that they enable highly targeted watering, which works to starve weeds of water and cuts back on their growth. This in turn reduces maintenance costs.
Preventing Foliar Diseases: Overhead irrigation methods can lead to moisture accumulation on plant foliage, creating a favorable environment for the development of fungal diseases. Drip systems prevent excessive moisture on leaves, reducing the risk of foliar diseases and promoting healthier plants.
Landscape Design Flexibility: Inline drip systems offer flexibility in landscape design and installation. The tubing can be easily laid out in various patterns, allowing precise customization for different plant types, spacing, and landscape configurations.

We found these municipalities offering rebates on drip systems that may suit your landscape:

Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) offers rebates for businesses to convert areas irrigated by spray heads to drip irrigation. Rebates are at $0.50 per square foot of converted area, with a maximum of 50,000 square feet for each qualified customer.
Cal Water Conservation Rebate program offers $0.50 per square foot of landscape for spray-to-drip irrigation conversion for multi-family residential and non-residential customers; the maximum rebate is $5,000 for converting 10,000 square feet of landscape.
SVC Water is offering commercial customers in the Santa Clarita area $0.75 per square foot for spray-to-drip conversions.

Reap the Benefits of Drought-Tolerant Landscaping

No matter the size of a company’s landscaped terrain, customers and tenants appreciate organizations that embrace sustainability. This means that in following water-wise landscaping practices, companies not only lower their water and maintenance costs, they also please their customer base and burnish their corporate image.

Your Best Landscape

Whether you want to maintain the grounds you already have, or transition to more sustainable terrain, our grounds and landscaping team has the expertise to make your landscapes bloom. Contact us today to learn more about our award-winning services.

From optimizing energy consumption to streamlining maintenance processes, facility engineers play a pivotal role in generating cost savings for businesses and building owners. And although operations vary across industries, there are several fundamental areas where facilities engineering is crucial for optimizing operational efficiency, leading to significant cost reductions.

Here we take a closer look at the benefits that facilities engineering can provide owners and occupants for buildings and their operations across industries.

Maintenance Planning: Extending Asset Lifespan, Minimizing Downtime

In 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) conducted a survey of the country’s building stock. The survey, known as the CBECS (Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey), found that the median construction date of commercial buildings in the U.S. is 1981, with 50% of building stock having been built between 1960 and 1999.

A 400-ton water-cooled chiller operating year-round at a 30% load requires almost 1.9 million gallons of makeup water just to replace evaporation losses.

While it’s no secret that regular maintenance services can extend equipment and building lifespans, reduce downtime, and avoid costly emergency repairs, with such a large stock of older buildings, preventative maintenance needs to be more strategic than ever.

Maintenance from facilities engineering teams that is planned instead of reactive, predictive instead of catch-up, is the optimum approach to smooth building operations, especially for older buildings. In addition to keeping these buildings in check and preventing repairs from becoming replacements, facilities management and engineering that is preventative will also have less negative impact on staff productivity—cutting costs in two ways.

Repairs become replacements when maintenance is deferred. Unfortunately, just because repair is delayed doesn’t mean daily use by building occupants will stop. Take a malfunctioning water heater, for example. Fixing it as soon as it starts to fail keeps a minor repair from becoming and more time-consuming and costly replacement.

Maintenance planning includes regular and timely inspections of all equipment. This will reveal the minor defects that can turn into major problems if not addressed. Regular inspections can uncover things like blocked air returns, missing pipe insulation, and daylight sensors that have been inadvertently covered.

Energy Efficiency: Facilities Engineering for Optimized Operations

From hospitality to healthcare, whether the facility is large or small, implementing energy-efficient measures can significantly reduce utility expenses and increase sustainability.

Across nearly all industries, heating and cooling systems account for as much as 30% of a building’s energy consumption. Engineers can ensure this energy use is continually optimized. Cleaning and maintaining filters, detecting and sealing air leaks (which cause the HVAC system to work harder), and ensuring thermostat settings are adjusted according to weather and building occupancy—all these efforts contribute to improving the building’s efficiency.

Lighting is another area where energy can be saved. Switching to LED products throughout a building can reduce energy consumption by as much as 60% compared to typical lighting. With more sustainable lighting, maintenance requirements drop significantly. LEDs are rated to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours, which—with typical office usage—means it will take 12 to 20 years before a bulb needs to be changed!

With skilled engineers in place, areas of energy inefficiency can be identified using an energy management system (EMS) that monitors and manages energy consumption in real time. If you already have a building automation system (BAS) in place to control electrical and mechanical equipment, you can take efficiency to a higher level by layering in an EMS to provide comprehensive data analysis and reporting. With this additional data, facility engineers can then adjust the BAS to optimize HVAC, lighting, power, and other systems, reducing energy waste and maximizing operational efficiency.

Commissioning

Even with expert technology-aided energy management, as buildings get older operations inevitably experience a “drift” from the optimum efficiency level of a new building or a building commissioned after a change of operations. This drift lowers efficiency and increases costs. To combat this, facilities engineering can conduct further commissioning audits (re- or retro-commissioning).

Through commissioning, operational inefficiencies are identified and necessary adjustments, fine-tuning, or equipment replacements are performed to reset the building operations to optimal performance. Commissioning outcomes not only save costs on energy but also contribute to occupant comfort and overall building performance.

Ideally, commissioning reviews should be conducted every five years. These reviews are essential for meeting the challenges that high-tech facilities such as data centers, healthcare facilities, and labs encounter; and they can be cost-effective even for small businesses.

An ongoing study (last updated in 2022) of Existing Building Commissioning (EBCx) by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that increases in energy efficiency from commissioning saved facilities as much as 19% in energy costs. The research, which looked at 1482 buildings across the United States, showed a median simple payback time of 2.2 years. And based on the results of an earlier version of the study (2009), the energy savings continue for another three to five years.

Although commissioning can sometimes include a recommendation for retrofits, the study showed that over 80% of the energy savings achieved in the surveyed buildings were obtained by scheduling, operation and control changes, and modifying setpoints and advanced resets. But whether operational changes or retrofits, these are all measures that can be conducted by facility engineers and technicians.

Water Conservation

Water conservation saves money and resources—and it’s another area where facilities engineering can make a big difference. Facilities engineers play a key role in designing and implementing water-efficient technologies and practices, which reduce water consumption and its associated costs.

One of the largest consumers of water and energy in a typical commercial building is the HVAC system. Heating and cooling accounts for as much as 48% of a building’s total water use. Facilities engineering teams can take several steps to reduce this water usage and save owners money.

For closed looped systems and cooling towers, engineers can install water meters that help troubleshoot operational problems, track water usage, and enable the benchmarking of water efficiency improvement projects. Additionally, regular inspections by engineers are essential to identify and fix any leaks in closed systems, thus ensuring efficient water use and preventing waste.

The water conservation techniques that are applied to HVAC cooling tower systems, which use water to evaporate and cool air, differ from the approach taken with closed looped systems. In water-cooled chillers, where the water that remains after evaporation is periodically drained and replaced, a lot of makeup water is needed. For example, a 400-ton water-cooled chiller operating year-round at a 30% load requires almost 1.9 million gallons of makeup water just to replace evaporation losses.

By exploring alternative water sources for use as makeup water for cooling towers, facilities engineers can conserve this essential resource. For example, condensate from fan coil units and air handlers can be used as tower makeup water. Gray water (reclaimed water that can be used for non-potable purposes) is another viable source. Even rainwater can be harvested from rain barrels or cisterns to serve as makeup water. By “reusing” water in this way, facilities can reduce the need for fresh water.

Scale buildup in areas with hard water is another cause of inefficient water use—and can even damage cooling towers. To minimize this scale buildup, facilities engineers can blend soft water with the area’s natural hard water. This improves efficiency and reduces water consumption.

Water conservation opportunities can be found in other parts of a building as well. In restrooms and kitchen facilities, for example, retrofitting the aerators on taps and replacing high flow toilets with low-flow versions can significantly reduce water consumption.

Wide-Reaching and Efficient

From the rooftop to the curb, across different sectors and industries, facilities engineering is vital to the smooth running of any building. By leveraging their expertise, facilities engineers can offer opportunities to drive cost savings, enhance operational efficiency, and ensure a sustainable future for commercial buildings.

A Partner You Can Rely On

Want to optimize the water and energy efficiency of your buildings? Our integrated facilities management team has been helping organizations do more with less for more than three decades. Contact us today to learn more.

The nonprofit social enterprise is awarded Best of the Best by U.S. Veterans Magazine.

Roseville, Calif. — For a third consecutive year, PRIDE Industries has been named one of the nation’s Best of the Best Top Veteran-Friendly Companies by U.S. Veterans Magazine (USVM). The distinction publicly recognizes those entities that go above and beyond in their support of our nation’s former military personnel. With an eye on veteran employment, the publication’s annual review evaluates the nation’s employers, initiatives, government agencies, and educational institutions.

“We strive to encourage companies to open up employment, business and supplier opportunities within the federal government and corporate America for veterans, transitioning service members, service-disabled veterans, spouses and veteran business owners,” said Mona Lisa Faris, President and Publisher at U.S. Veterans Magazine.

PRIDE Industries recognizes that the experience veterans gain serving our country makes them valuable employees. The company currently employs hundreds of veterans in all areas of the organization and has provided support and services to thousands more in the form of job coaching, vocational instruction, and employment placement assistance.

“PRIDE Industries offers U.S. veterans a welcoming and supportive environment as they work to reach their career goals,” said Tim Young, Vice President, Talent Management at PRIDE Industries. “We are honored by this recognition and remain ever vigilant in our resolve to network with community partners to recruit military veterans.”

Resources for veterans include PRIDE Industries’ one-of-a-kind I AM ABLE employment helpline [(844) 426-2253], a Veteran Employee Resource Group (ERG), and a Military Skills Translator tool that helps veterans match their skills and talent to a civilian career. In addition, PRIDE Industries can help veterans access paid internships as well as mentoring and training programs. And to help other companies increase their hiring of diverse candidates, including military veterans, the company provides recruiting services.

“We appreciate all the men and women who bravely served our country,” said Young. “It is our honor to provide our veteran heroes, active-duty spouses, the guard and reserve soldiers, and their families with employment opportunities. Thank you to U.S. Veterans Magazine and to all of our veteran referral partners.”

About PRIDE Industries

PRIDE Industries delivers business excellence with a positive social impact. A social enterprise, we provide facilities operations and maintenance services, custodial services, contract manufacturing, supply chain management, packaging and fulfillment services, and placement services to private and public organizations nationwide. Founded in 1966, PRIDE Industries’ mission is to create employment for people with disabilities. Through personalized employment services, we help individuals realize their true potential and lead more independent lives. PRIDE Industries proves the value of its inclusive workforce model through operational success across multiple industries every day.

About U.S. Veterans Magazine (USVM)

The mission of the U.S. Veterans Magazine (USVM) is simple: to open up immediate, lucrative employment, and business and supplier opportunities for veterans, transitioning service members, disabled veterans, and veteran business owners within the federal government, as well as corporate America. In turn, we link companies and government entities to qualified career and business candidates from the ranks of the nation’s veterans. We provide the latest, most important veteran news, covering virtually every industry, business, and profession. This includes up-to-date statistics on workforce diversity, as well as business-to-business trends. We offer both recruitment and business opportunities, along with accurate, timely conferences and event calendars. And just as importantly, we spotlight inspiring role models and notable mentors. USVM is a WBENC and DOBE-certified company. Learn more. at https://usveteransmagazine.com.

Media Contact

Kat Maudru

(916) 753-4339

media@prideindustries.com

PRIDE Industries is a social enterprise delivering business excellence to public and private organizations nationwide.