Age care leader Respect hands a bouquet to sustainable irrigators Water Dynamics

A retirement community that prides itself on the high horticultural standards it sets to attract and delight residents has demonstrated its commitment to sustainable beauty with an advanced irrigation system at The Terrace in Wangaratta.

The Terrace is one of more than 26 retirement communities operated by the long-established not-for-profit Respect Group, headquartered in Tasmania and since expanded to Victoria, NSW, WA and, most recently, Queensland. All share an ethos of fostering communities where everyone feels valued and included.

“The beautiful gardens and landscapes surrounding the 153 homes in this community are a major drawcard that make our residents feel at home, with walkways through natural wetlands with open countryside and creek views,” said the Village Manager, Peter Kenyon.

Peter commissioned an energy and water-saving, 177-station, centrally and easily controlled irrigation refurbishment and upgrading system introduced this year by Water Dynamics Yarrawonga, Victoria, to keep the village blooming. Water Dynamics Yarrawonga is part of the broader Water Dynamics irrigation group, which engineers cost-efficient schemes for residential communities, municipal schemes, horticulture, viticulture and livestock, pastoral, and water conservation projects.

Integral to The Terrace’s water use and energy savings are two Hunter ACC99D control systems installed in its irrigation system’s central zone, which uses two-wire decoders to control 177 stations, installed as part of a broader spectrum of improvements including fault detection and elimination audits, plus improved pumping and water-conserving sprinkler stations. Water Dynamics’ Andrew Heslin says the two-wire irrigation system is easily set to respond to changing weather conditions and to maximise water use efficiencies. It also saves energy by reducing the amount of wiring required, minimising electrical losses during transmission, and enabling more efficient operation with smaller, more localised controllers.

Partnering for long-term efficiency

Water and energy efficiency are important to The Terrace community, both for resident happiness and for the community as a responsible corporate citizen of the Wangaratta district, a city of 30,000 about 235 km NW of Melbourne.

“We all have a responsibility not to waste water, while keeping our trees and gardens alive and flourishing,” says Peter Kenyon. “Wangaratta can get very hot and have dry periods too, so we have to be very responsible as we embark on our community projects, including our latest initiative to plant avenues of street trees as part of a landscape plant developed in consultation with residents over the last 12 months.

This was done professionally by Jenny Kjar Landscaping and accounts for beauty, environmental responsibility and support for wildlife and resident wellbeing.

The new and upgraded irrigation system, engineered and managed by the Water Dynamics team, in partnership with Peter Kenyon, is keyed to reducing maintenance tasks and increasing efficiencies now and in the future.

“A retirement home has a multitude of maintenance jobs every day – painting, mowing, internal house repairs – so the last thing we wanted was an unreliable irrigation system,” said Peter.

Tackling technical challenges

After some false starts, Peter Kenyon found Andrew Heslin from Water Dynamics’ Yarrawonga branch, whose understanding was aligned with their needs. Andrew also obtained the expertise of Water Dynamics’ Yarrawonga Sales Manager, Peter Kidgell, who designed the new works involved.

We set out with a clear understanding that at The Terrace we could not afford to spend inordinate amounts of time fixing sprinklers and the like, or responding to resident complaints about too much or too little water. In achieving our aims, we were very pleased to come across Water Dynamics, who have been top notch since day one.

Particular issues addressed included:

• Identification of issues with the pump station & filtration plant related infrastructure
• Rectification of electrical transmission across the property
• Sprinkler upgrades, improvement to the irrigation uniformity.
• Installation of lightning protection earth stakes in the strike-prone area, where strikes have caused power outages affecting thousands of consumers.

Andrew Heslin says that, while refurbishing and re-engineering the ideal system involved many tasks over many months, the overall project was greatly facilitated by the Hunter two-wire decoder systems, fitted with a 177-station module and a Roam Link remote system for time-saving manual use to achieve overall and zone efficiencies.

By operating large numbers of valves over long distances, the ACC99D decoder controllers take full advantage of the powerful ACC feature set. Because it is two-wire powered, it also saves copper wire, simplifies troubleshooting, permits rapid addition of new stations, minimises trenching, and permits remote sensor monitoring over the two-wire path.

Two-wire systems use decoder modules at each valve to interpret signals sent along the two-wire path, effectively eliminating the need for individual wires for each valve.

Peter Kenyon says organisations rich in horticultural assets they need to protect should look not only at the technology being offered to achieve this objective, but also at the ability of the service provider to understand and share objectives in a respectful, ongoing partnership.

What happens after the installations and refurbs is every bit as vital to the system’s ongoing success. In this regard we were very happy indeed to find Andrew and his team, who have been exemplary in first understanding what we wanted, then in following through thoroughly to ensure that if works in practice – and continues to work.

They’re courteous, reliable and professional, attitudes worth their weight in gold to a busy manager.

The good ongoing relationship is key to not only safeguarding our horticultural and landscape assets, but also to optimising the water and energy savings for environmental and community benefit.