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Irrigation Update

Published: August 13, 2024

I'm sure you know you pay two HOA fees, one to the Master and one to the Townhomes. The Master Association is responsible for all green space, gates, roads, sidewalks, play areas, etc. All areas that are common to everyone in the community.

The townhomes board is responsible for things specific only to the townhomes including irrigation, landscape, property insurance, etc.
You are totally correct that irrigation has been an issue since day one! The TH board was just formed in August of last year -- we immediately found a couple of significant problems including Bates and Hennings never had water hooked up!!! Lots of dead landscape as a result. The builder and irrigator rectified the problem and replaced the dead landscape in December of last year (no cost to us).

The Master Board made a change in April of last year in landscape companies from D&D to Sage and Stone. As they began their work, they spent several months repairing, fixing, and troubleshooting the entire system. Thus, the second issue that was found was lots of valve breaks, pipe, and connection breaks, etc. then the total lack of water on Michael Irving, Schramm and Tolbert. Sage and Stone found lots (really lots) of issues including many decoders (I think that is what they are called - the brain of the system) specifically on Michael Irving that had been stolen (yes stolen). As these were on the townhome side whose irrigation is included in our dues, it was the TH Association that had to pay to have these replaced. We attempted to put the responsibility back on the master board as they were 'in charge' before the TH Association was formed. We had both irrigations companies out here -- (the builders changed irrigation companies part way through the building process) thus we pushed back to the builder to accept responsibility. We really didn't have enough factual information to push further with either. Thus, the TH Association paid the invoice for the replacement as it had to be done.

BUT...... THE WOES ARE NOT OVER.....Sage and Stone and their landscaper have found numerous issues in the installation of the TH irrigation including -- the wrong size valves, the depth of the lines (not deep enough, thus impacted freeze, heat, ground shifting, etc.), the type of connections that were used to running piping/wires under the sidewalks without protective sleeves..... I could go on and on. Bottom line, the installation was not per irrigation best practices.

Once we found this out, we had Sage and Stone do a complete inventory of what we have installed and compared what we have to the plans the city approved. The type of valves used were residential valves and what the city approved were commercial and more expensive. The covers were spec'd by the city to be 10" and the builder’s contractors installed 6" (making repairs difficult). The valves are the real problem in that they cannot handle the pressure needed to handle the system.

Two weeks ago, we contacted the developer with this information and as of yesterday, they came back and said it was not their responsibility. After numerous conversations about responsibility, they passed it to the builder. (Apparently the developer is responsible for bringing water to the site, the remainder of the installation is the builder's responsibility). Yesterday, I contacted Ashton Woods and shared with them the problems and experience from day one. Steve Davies, Ashton Woods responded today that he needed a few days to digest and review/research and would get back to us.

So., long story short, it was/is a bad installation -- we are trying the 'logical discussion route' to see how far we can get -- we may have to enlist legal support, but praying we can make progress without that.

In the meantime..... I have contacted the city and requested a copy of the inspection documents where they inspected the installation. I have shared with them that it is not per their specifications and requested their assistance in working with the builder to rectify.

What can I say, we have been pulling our hair out. Please join the teams meeting on Monday - it is the Master Association Board of Directors Meeting so not specific to the townhomes, but still great insight and information.

Should you have any questions regarding the upcoming Board of Directors meeting, you may submit your inquiry via the “Contact Us” tab and an Essex representative will respond promptly.