How AI Surprisingly Just Reduced My Summer Water Bill

Artificial Intelligence. It's an area that many of us, including myself, are wary of stepping into, as it seems the possibilities are endless. And, let's be honest, the sheer amount that AI is learning to do makes us also worried about our jobs. So I was reluctant to turn to AI to help me with an annual problem I've been having for 3 years, but I'm really glad, at least at this point, that I did.

I've Been Throwing Money Away The Last 3 Summers

It's embarrassing to admit, but for the last 3 years I've been lighting money on fire. Not literally, but in a figurative sense, I've been throwing money into the wind, and everything I'd try to stop losing money wasn't working.

We have an in-ground sprinkler system, and I love my lawn. Can you see where I am going with this? It's more of a love-hate relationship; I love to have a lush green lawn, but I hate seeing the water bill when I turn on the system. So I've been trying to figure out for the last three years why, when I turn my system on, it seems to run 3x more than it should be running, overwatering my lawn in the process and costing me way more than it should to keep my lawn in good shape.

(Yes, I've not used my in-ground system and went to a normal sprinkler, but having to constantly move it around to get the whole lawn gets old really fast when I've got a built solution.)

Here's Where AI Came In, To Help Me Solve What Was Going On

I was ready to pull my hair out and call out a local company to figure out why the system was constantly running when a co-worker told me to ask AI.

I laughed.

But after my co-worker explained why he thought I should try AI, I admitted I should at least give it a try, and when that didn't work, I would make the phone call to a lawn service, and 'pay the idiot tax'.

By simply asking AI to troubleshoot what my problem was, it gave me three things to check on the unit, and then told me if that didn't work, I'd have to get someone out to look at it.

The first thing it had me check was the program clock/start times.

For three years, I had set what I thought were zone start times. I instead had been programming my system to run 4 different times, all at once.

Yup. I had been overloading the system computer by doing this, causing it to run 3 extra times, over the course of another 5 hours...meaning I was the problem, not my irrigation system.

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I fixed the issue in about 5 minutes; now, I only have my irrigation set to run once, rather than four times.

I'm looking forward to my water bill this summer, all thanks to a co-worker and getting over my 'fear' of using AI.

BTW, our area has some great lawn service companies that I've personally used for system start-up and fall shutdown, as well as for regular lawn maintenance and repair. 

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