My dad put one in when their house was built in 1988.
It is convenient. Saves a lot of time dragging hoses around.
But, the maintenance on it. The little pop up sprinkler heads have always needed frequent adjustment. Sometimes they clog up.
Dad died and now mom is stuck trying to keep it maintained. She had the main control replaced. That was several hundred dollars.
Just a couple years ago the plumber came out and replaced several sprinkler heads and got all of them adjusted. Right after that a slow leak was discovered out in the yard. That resulted in a huge water bill.
Today it developed a huge leak. Nearly flooding the front yard.
Mom’s has spent over a $1000 plus the big water bill just in the past 5 years.
I’m not sure anymore that a underground sprinkler system is worth it.
How has your experience been ? You paying constantly for repairs?
I’m beginning to think they didn’t bury the pipes deep enough.
It’s been in the low twenties at my mom’s house the last few nights. That may have lead to the big leak today.
Worse case. We may just get the water shut off to the sprinkler lines. Rain can water the yard. Some of the grass might die but that’s not unusual. Lots of people rarely water the grass.
I only water my small yard if it hasn’t rained for more than two weeks. I use hoses and drag sprinklers around.
I’m not sure where you live but, in any place with a real winter, you’re supposed to turn off the system and blow out the lines before the temperatures drop.
But for all I know the low temps near you were some aberration.
Dad always took care of the sprinklers. AFAIK he never shut the system down for winter. But I live a 100 miles away and wasn’t around.
Mom just sets the timer to turn them on. I may need to step in and learn more about using and maintaining it. I can shut it off and drain it if they have the valves installed.
I’m a licensed irrigator and have made my living repairing sprinkler systems for years. First thing I have to say, I own a heavily landscaped 2 acre property with no sprinkler system and my turf grass is usually greener than that of my clients even though I only irrigate my hybrid bermuda 2x a year and my St. Augustine 2x a month.
Irrigation installation almost always goes to the lowest bidder who, surprise, isn’t too good at the work and cuts a lot of corners to make a profit. Home Depot and Lowe’s getting involved in it is even better for me because they sell a lot of low end crap for people to bury until it breaks. And homeowner DIY is best of all. And sadly, here in Texas, the State has decided not to enforce the licensing laws so there is a lot of fly by night type activity.
Instead of a sprinkler system grade your property to eliminate runoff from turf areas and have at least 6 inches of good fertile soil everywhere so plants can grow roots. Plant native shrubs, grasses and perennials and garden for birds and butterflies instead of the local garden club. No pesticides,organic fertilizers, and have your religious friends petition their Deities for a bit of extra rain that falls only when you need it.
How big is the yard? Sounds like your mom has several thousands of dollars into this system that just broke down again. Is it worth repairing? Is the yard more than an acre or two? Can she just water it by hand? Does she need to water it? I don’t know your climate at all, but if you get enough rain, it might not be necessary. Grass will go dormant without dying and come back as soon as there’s water again as long as it isn’t too long (more than a few weeks or so).
Something she might consider is turning off the automatic controls and shutting off the water to the system. Then when she wants to water the grass she can turn the water back on and do what she needs to do and shut the water off when she’s done. This will prevent a ruptured line from dumping thousands of gallons of water into the ground. If a line blows, she’ll know it when the heads don’t pop up. If it’s a small leak, it’ll only leak while the system is on.
It’s a band-aid, but it’s a lot cheaper then replacing the system or even having someone come out to fix the leak.
I have one and I don’t use it. I discovered an odd correlation between its use and required mowing frequency. Turning it off has reduced the amount of time I spend walking behind a noisy appliance. Our HOA can assess damages and fees for grass being too high, but nothing in the covenants requires it to be green.
(Trust me, nothing upsets officious bureaucrats more than discovering you’ve actually read their documents. )
Why are you having to deal with this at all, if there’s a yardman?
Why not get the yardman to drag the hoses and do the watering?
Or invest in several drip hoses, getting the yardman to lay them out to all the beds. Then she need only turn it on and off. Sounds like it would be cheaper than maintaining the current system! And the yardman can haul it in for the winter, if need be, for your climate!
We live in a condo in northern Illinois, where it gets cold.every fall they blow out the lines and shit the water off. Sometime in April they will come back out, turn the water on, try it out, and adjust the heads. We have had to have a head or two replaced, but that’s it for us. Some of our neighbors have had leaking problems leading to flooded, marshy spots.
The system is over twenty years old, so the condo board has a decision to make about repair or replace since the problems are getting more frequent.
But depending on where you live, the system should probably be shut down in the winter.
But, yeah, it’s more than just turning off the water; you need to blow air through the lines so the stagnant water left in them doesn’t freeze and crack the system.
The first leak is probably too long ago, but if your water supplier is like mine, they can give discounts if you get an unusually large bill because of a leak or equipment failure. Once our irrigation started running even though it was turned off. Unfortunately, we were on vacation and the irrigation was in the back yard that very few people can see. It ran 24 hours a day until our neighbor noticed it. We got a bill for something like $700, but the county agreed to waive about $450 of that.
You need to show some sort of repair bill as evidence. I’ve had a running toilet in a guest bathroom that ran for some time. I had to go out and buy a new flapper, even though I already had one, to present a receipt to the county. I got a significant discount on that water bill also.
I used to own an irrigation company. And worked for a few others.
That was a long time ago though.
A properly installed system does not need blown out. Drains should be on the mainline and valve manifolds that can just be opened up (after you shut the pressure off of course).
Sure they take some maintenance, but for the most part, they just need shut down/drained in the fall and charged in the spring. Restarting it in the spring does often involve adjust a few heads that get out of whack. It’s just part of the process.
I don’t know if it would help, but you can get Internet-accessible controllers. You would be able to see the activity and turn the system on and off remotely. I have one called Rachio.
One possible downside is that the only way to control it is via an app. Your mother might not be up to that. Plus when you need maintenance you have to be there with the irrigation guy to turn things on and off for him.
We have one that came with the house. I’ve modified it over the last seven years to work better for our landscape and done any repairs myself. It’s not complicated, honestly, but our yard is small.
I work in commercial landscaping and blowing out the system is standard operating procedure around here. That said, what gets written into the specification manuals and what actually needs to happen sometimes differ. All of our irrigation subs do it as a regular part of the system’s shut down though.
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