We were going through electricians, we were going through parts. Nobody could put their finger on what was wrong.
Jim Grice
Castellina Homeowners Association, Inc.
Location: The Village of Wellington, Florida
Client: Castellina Homeowners Association, Inc
Market: Residential Community
An HOA with a strong desire to finally address their unfit-for-purpose, expensive irrigation system.
Restore order from chaos and deliver an irrigation project plan the HOA would have absolute confidence in.
A complete irrigation solution, that addressed the issues but didn't involve starting from scratch.
A phased approach to build a system the community needs and the support to help them manage it.
An HOA with confidence in their irrigation, supported by their irrigation partner, Hoover.
Castellina is a gated community in Wellington, Florida, made up of 260 single-family homes. It features three large lakes and a number of lakefront properties. The Board approached Hoover due to concerns over a number of issues with the existing irrigation system, which was installed in 2011.
The original installation was based on designs for other projects and not custom-built for the Community. This gave it a built-in inadequacy from the start. Hoover had carried out some upgrades to the irrigation system earlier to help mitigate a range of problems, however, it was always clear that a long-lasting solution was required.
The difficulties of a constantly under-performing system were compounded over the years by service providers' lack of technical expertise, poor advice and poor understanding of the underlying problems. Hefty bills for the repair and replacement of components were commonplace and for years, the community watched their investment and their landscaping slowly deteriorate in front of their eyes with lawns dying through lack of water or, alternatively, sprinklers running for days on end.
We were going through electricians, we were going through parts. Nobody could put their finger on what was wrong.
Jim Grice
Castellina Homeowners Association, Inc.
After the initial audit and report were published, Hoover carried out its own comprehensive investigations and analysis of the situation at Castellina, including more thorough mapping, a review of the available plans and assessing the general condition of equipment on-site. We then reviewed our findings and developed the solutions as a team. Our key finding was that there was no evidence to support the initial recommendation put to the HOA, to pull everything out and start again.
The HOA was now equipped with the results of Hoover’s analysis and recommendations. Now they were empowered to take a more realistic view of their situation. The Hoover plan was a complete irrigation solution designed to solve all the issues they were facing, while putting in place firm foundations for a more efficient and easy to run irrigation set up going forward.
In summary, we recommended a phased revamp and upgrade of the existing system at a significantly lower cost than starting over. Our proposal was duly accepted by the Board. The first step in the plan was to replace the dual pumping stations with a single, Flowguard pump station. This initial step, so critical to the success of the project, was followed by several actions to address other issues, including mainline problems - adding inter-connections to the distribution and replacing incorrectly sized pipes with those of the correct size.
The Hoover solution was as much about managing the irrigation and supporting the Community as it was about the design and installation of the system itself.
Initially the Board had been convinced the best approach would be to replace the pump station but our proposition was to analyze the entire system, from the pump station through to the zones being watered, looking at the hydraulic limitations of the site itself and the number of zones that needed to be maintained. It was as simple as going right back to the original plans.
Hoover’s plan provided a total irrigation solution - from installing pipes of the correct size and assessing the correct number of zones required - to putting the Flowguard system and HIRIMS (Hoover's Intelligent Remote Irrigation Management System) in place to continually balance the irrigation in real-time. It also meant educating the Board so they knew exactly what their system should be delivering and providing them with ongoing irrigation management support.
By installing the new Flowguard pump station first, we could begin collecting and analyzing data to inform the decision-making. It also meant the Community would start seeing immediate improvements while we continued to address the issues highlighted in our inspection.
The marked success of this initial activity, and our ongoing help with other issues with their irrigation convinced the Board to engage Hoover further which resulted in our plan for a phased approach of upgrades and continuing support that would have a lasting impact.
Some of the significant technical changes we made to the existing design included:
Leadership in Energy Conservation Award
Manufacturer of the Year
LEED AP Experts on Staff
Certified Technicians
2801 N Powerline Road Pompano Beach, FL 33069