Los Angeles Water Restrictions

LOS ANGELES WATER RESTRICTIONS (EFFECTIVE AUGUST 25, 2010)

Effective August 25th, 2010, the LA City Council approved an updated version of the watering restrictions. Under the previous regulations watering was only allowed on Mondays and Thursdays. Under the new revisions you can water up to three times a week, and which days you may water are determined by whether your street number ends in an odd or even number.

Odd numbered addresses can water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays while even numbers can water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. If your address ends in a fraction, the number that precedes it determines your watering days.

Additionally, the amount you can water with traditional spray or bubbler heads has been reduced from 10 minutes per watering day per station to 8 minutes. Rotor heads and water-saving rotary style heads may be run for 15 minutes at a time, and twice per watering day per station, a definite increase from before, and an amount much more likely to keep your yard alive. It appears that those are the major changes. The list of sprinkler use restrictions is available here: http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp012434.pdf

There are some restrictions that seem to run counter to previous water-saving efforts led by the DWP before, like the programs that offer free “smart” controllers and nozzles designed to prevent runoff like the MP Rotator. The Weathermatic Smart Line controllers, which have been given away in incentive programs, use site information in conjunction with a weather station that takes daily readings to computer just how much water is needed for your lawn. It also stops the controller from running when it rains, and even skips cycles after it rains if necessary. These controllers that are designed to use water efficiently and know when to shut themselves off might actually violate the new regulations if it decides a station needs to run more than 15 minutes. You can tell the controller to water Mondays and Thursdays, but if it calculates it needs to water a section longer than the allowed times, you would be subject to a fine. Rotors and MP Rotator heads typically need to run about three times as long as a spray head to put out the same amount of water, yet they are only allowing 5 minutes more per day (10 minutes per week) for these types of heads. Hopefully there will be come re-clarification or tweaking of the rules to allow these heads, especially the ones being suggested because of their run-off reducing ability, to be used.

UPDATE: The City of Beverly Hills also has new watering restrictions for automatic sprinklers, effective July 1st, 2009. Residents north of Santa Monica Blvd can water on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays only, and residents south of Santa Monica Blvd may only water on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. No watering is allowed between the hours of 9am and 5pm, or on Sundays. More info can be found here: Beverly Hills Water Conservation

We can help you program your controller and try to come up with a game plan to both follow the rules and still get the proper amount of water to your yard.