St Vincent's School

Irrigation System Upgrade

The Future of Water

St Vincent’s School is the future of Smart Water Systems in more ways than one.

From capturing real-time data from 15 zones to 100% organic fertilisers and changing the ionic structure of their bore water, St Vincent’s is giving their grounds their best opportunity to thrive year round.

Project Scope

St Vincent’s School is located in Perth’s Southern suburb of Parmelia, where their groundwater has high concentrations of iron.

In the past they used untreated bore water to irrigate their grounds, resulting in clogged sprinkler heads, stained paving and buildings. Their lawns and sports oval was struggling due to inadequate sprinkler coverage and poor soil health.

Earth & Water’s brief was to bring the whole irrigation system up to date. Our solution was a Smart Water System that integrates the existing irrigation infrastructure with updated operational parts and increased control over the entire system.

Our Smart Water System came in the following four stages of upgrading the:

Bore pump
Irrigation controller
Sprinklers & pipe work
Updating the site survey & design work

And…

In addition to designing and installing a Smart Water System, we worked with No Frills Fertilisers apply a mix of fertilisers that are 100% organic. The benefits of 100% organic fertilisers extend from soil health to increased safety to the children who are in contact with the flora almost daily.

1. Upgrading the Bore pump

The weak water pressure across the school was due to age and size of the existing bore pump. Sprinklers were not popping up all the way and were operating with reduced water coverage.

We replaced the old pump that was operating below its performance curve with an Italian Lowara 3-Phase Submersible pump that immediately increased water pressure through the system.

By lifting the pressure we could identify wht sprinklers were clogged and which simply weren’t getting pressure before.

St Vincent Primary Schools Hydrawise control Dashboard

Smart Water Controller

The old irrigation controller has been replaced with a Hydrawise Smart Controller that controls and provides real-time data on 15 zones across the school.

Smart Controller

Automatic adjustment to each of the 15 irrigation programs based on hyper-localised weather conditions. For example; if it rains the controller reduces run times, if it’s abnormally hot it will water for longer or more reguarly.
Flow tracking means authorised people will get notifications of leaks and blocakges as they happen and can immediately respond. The controller will also shut zones down to stop leaks turning into puddles and floods.
Wifi enabled for remote management

St Vincent Primary School iron clogged Sprinkler

Sprinklers & Pipe Work

Parmelia’s untreated water caused sprinklers nozzles and subsurface drippers to clog. This begins as a small problem that is hardly noticable but over time reduces sprinkler coverage and dead grounds.

Beneath the surface old pipes had thick layers of iron accumulation that reduced flow. Above the ground, iron staining was evident with staining occuring where sprinklers.

Upgrades
Sprinklers that were clogged with iron or sand and had to be replaced with Hunter PGP sprinklers. Solenoids valves faulty with rusted coils were located and replaced.

St Vincents Primary School Fertiliser Program

Philosophy: Organic is the Future

We noticed a visible difference across the sports ovals within 14 days and after only a month all the grounds were healthier, greener and more luscious.

Organic fertilisers improve soil composition and availability of nutrients by providing the right type of stimuli to help the soil microbiology to grow.

Traditional fertilisers damage natural soil chemistry and flora becomes dependant on the fertiliser because the nutrients no longer naturally exist in the soil.

Benefits:

Safe application
Improved soil chemistry
Healthier flora
No chemicals

St Vincents

There are 15 zones across the school with more than 600 square metres of irrigation coverage.

We applied several agricultural grade fertilisers sourced from No Frills Fertilisers. Who also work with Cullen Wines to produce award winning wines that are certified as A Grade Biodynamic by BFA Australia.

Application

As part of the irrigation upgrade, we installed a venturi that allows St Vincents to inject liquid soluable fertilisers quickly through each of the school’s 15 zones.