How to create a water wise business

It’s inevitable. Parts break. Components wear out. Accidents happen and a kid, dog or mower can knock an irrigation head out of whack. Not to mention, “Nothing lasts forever,” says Scott Maxwell, branch manager at Gelderman Landscape Services in Mississauga, Ontario. “Just because we install a new irrigation system on a property today doesn’t mean that three weeks from now a head won’t get broken off or a controller messed up if there was a power failure.”

Irrigation repair and maintenance is more lucrative than installation, he says. It’s also more of a need-it-now service, while system installation is a capital expenditure that property managers and homeowners carefully consider.

“Irrigation repair and maintenance is more profitable overall because it’s a continuous, year-after-year need,” Maxwell says.

Steve Glennon, president, CEO and COO at Cagwin & Dorward in Novato, California, says irrigation renovation work is common in his region. “Oftentimes, a property will have an irrigation system that is 25-plus years old, and with the water shortages in California, we are converting a lot of overhead spray irrigation to subsurface drip systems,” he says.

Read more in our July issue here.