Responding to a persistent drought, Californians have cut back their fresh water usage by 29 percent. So you know they are interested in all manner of ways to save water.
Swan Products LLC sees water conservation as the future and it is filling a pressing need with its advanced watering systems. The Totowa, N.J., company is promoting conservation as it rebrands itself and rolls out upgraded garden watering systems.
Western North America is withering under an alarming drought and the residents are getting very serious about how they use water. The state of California is of course keeping an eye on the problem and it reports residential water savings in May amounted to 28.9 percent compared with May 2013.
“It is clear from this [monthly] report that many communities have made a commitment as Californians to scale back outdoor watering and conserve — and the effort shows,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of California's State Water Resources Control Board in a recent announcement.
Swan is marketing itself as “Swan — The Watering Company” and it is backing up the boast with new plastic hoses and other water delivery systems.
“The time is right to reposition ourselves as the leader of the category,” said Swan President and CEO Miguel Nistal in a phone interview. “We are upgrading the look and feel of our products.”
Swan is debuting this year its Element Soaker System, a modular watering kit that the company claims can save up to 70 percent of the water directed at residential gardens and lawns. Swan extrudes a polyethylene/rubber composite into 100-foot lengths which residents can cut to the specific needs of their garden and lawn layout. The system includes ergonomically designed couplings to attach to the lengths of hose snipped by the gardener. Tiny perforations in the hose spray water where and when it's needed most, eliminating most of the wastage that occurs when less precise systems scatter water in the hope it will fall where plants want it. Easy attachment of couplings is a key selling point for such systems.
The Element system is a variant of widely used soaker hoses that spray water onto soil within a radius of a few feet or so from the hose. Because a homeowner can snip the Element hose to any length, he or she can reduce the amount of water delivered to dead zones such as sidewalks and driveways.