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Wyatt Irrigation’s new Petaluma store to showcase tech

FOURTH NORTH BAY LOCATION INCLUDES TRAINING CENTER

PETALUMA – Wyatt Irrigation Supply plans to open its fourth North Bay store here this week to serve northern Marin and southern Sonoma counties as well as create a training center for high-tech and low-water irrigation and frost-control systems.

The 14,000-square-foot store at 1016 Lakeville Highway is larger than the distributors’ other stores in Santa Rosa, Ukiah and Napa.

More room means more products can be set up to show contractors, growers and homeowners installation possibilities and operation, but Wyatt also will be able to offer training on the latest technology, such as controllers that adjust water use to site-specific evapotranspiration, or ET, data, according to owner Phil Wyatt.

“Cities and counties are promoting water conservation and ET-based controllers, so we can demo that live for customers,” he said.

Indeed, Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park and Petaluma are among local governments in the past few years that have joined Marin County in employing regulatory and monetary incentives and penalties, such as requiring water budgets with development proposals and tiering water rates to charge heavy water users more.

Also, water conservation is among the proposed prerequisites for U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating systems. Most of the local green-building ordinances reference LEED standards or require a certain number of LEED points for commercial projects.

“People said I was nuts 20 years ago when I was lecturing and said that a bottle of water would cost more than a beer,” Mr. Wyatt said. “At ballparks now, it costs $5 to $6 for a bottle of water.”

Those trends have fueled the growth of companies such as Petaluma-based HydroPoint Data Systems, whose ET controllers employ satellite data.

Meanwhile, the longest and most pervasive frost many North Coast winegrape growers have seen in three decades has prompted more sales of frost-control systems, according to Mr. Wyatt. Areas that haven’t had frost issues in recent memory, or haven’t had temperatures dip lower than wind machines and other control measures could manage, experienced spotty damage to portions or whole blocks of vineyards.

“We’ve had interest from grape growers to move over from impact sprinklers to microemitters this year because they used so much water for frost protection,” Mr. Wyatt said.

The larger Petaluma location for Wyatt also will allow for indoor storage of moisture-sensitive erosion-control items such as jute netting and straw wattles. Having more space also will allow for warehousing of excess inventory for last-minute orders from the Santa Rosa and Napa stores. Wyatt has a warehouse in Ukiah to serve the store there.

After years in manufacturing of hard plastics and irrigation equipment sales, Mr. Wyatt started Wyatt Irrigation Supply in 1982 across Yolanda Avenue from the current location of the flagship Santa Rosa store. The company expanded a few years later, opened a store in Ukiah, then five years ago opened a Napa Valley location.

From three employees the company has grown to about 30, with about a half-dozen for the Petaluma location. The Business Journal ranked the firm as the fifth-largest irrigation equipment supply company in the North Bay this year. Sales in 2007 topped $9 million.

Wyatt Irrigation Supply started in landscape irrigation but expanded into fire protection as plastic pipe suitable for rural sprinkler systems reached the market. The company also jumped into agricultural irrigation and frost-protection systems, which now account for 65 percent of sales.

A grand opening for the Petaluma store with manufacturer demonstrations is set for Sept. 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

For more information, call 707-762-3747 or visit www.wyattsupply.com.