Like all living creatures, your plants and trees need water to grow. While fertilizer, pesticides, light, and air are all important, none of them can sustain your landscape without a regular, reliable source of water.
Rain is neither regular nor reliable, which is why you need an irrigation system.
Remember the extreme drought of 2005-2008? Due to draconian water restrictions imposed by the state, many lawns didn’t have a reliable water source.
The only mowable vegetation that survived was drought-tolerant, which allowed invasive carpet grass and weeds to take over. These landscapes won’t recover without extensive, costly resodding.
In Florida, it doesn’t take a drought to ruin turf.
Rain is irregular and unpredictable. On top of that, our sandy “soil” holds rainwater so poorly that even a healthy green lawn deprived of water will dry out in less than a week. This allows drought-resistant weeds to crowd into the area.
You can’t have a lawn if you depend on rain for irrigation. All one has to do is walk onto any vacant lot to see that the lawn stops where irrigation system coverage ends.
We perform timely inspections, quick repairs, and critical modifications to the system as circumstances require. This ensures that your sprinklers work reliably.
The older your system gets, the more often we will need to perform these services.
Irrigation systems are more complicated than you might realize. In fact, they have thousands of moving parts, which propel and guide water from downstream pumps to your landscape.
There are many reasons why these parts might need service, but let’s discuss a few of the most common ones.
Nature often damages irrigation systems. Some common issues include:
Tree roots are particularly troublesome because they’re hidden underground. The offending roots have to be located and chopped away before repairs can be made. If they’re too difficult to cut, the water line has to be modified to circumvent them.
Like any other dynamic system, irrigation system components will wear out as they age. Mechanized parts are typically the quickest to do so.
For instance, as pop up sprinklers age, they often stop coming out of the ground. This is because they lose their shape. When the piston becomes out of round, it sticks inside the sleeve.
This is a problem whether it’s stuck in the up or down position:
Other common issues include:
Sprinklers and valves are designed to move fairly clean water. These components will therefore malfunction whenever foreign matter is introduced into the system.
This can occur during all kinds of situations. Something as simple as a sprinkler change or as dramatic as a tree uprooted during a storm can introduce undesirable contaminants into the water flow.
Common contaminants include:
Pipes and fittings also take a beating, especially main lines over two inches in diameter. Water does not compress, so it can carry a strong shock wave from the pump all the way out to the farthest nozzle every time the pump starts.
Ideally, shock wave damage to a main line occurs infrequently, after the system is over twenty years old.
Premature and multiple main line damage occurs when:
While over starts and sudden valve stops are sometimes caused by malfunctions, these events and the resulting premature main line failures are also caused by unauthorized individuals who meddle with the irrigation system.
Accidents happen. The following are some of the most common causes of sprinkler disrepair:
Most of the time, this type of damage is subtle when it occurs and goes unnoticed until it manifests itself as a drop in water pressure, a tall geyser, or a bubbling spring.
If the same irrigation part keeps getting damaged, we’ll try relocating it to solve the issue. However, modifications in tight areas aren’t always possible, in which case we’ll need to find another solution.
When irrigation damage is neglected or improperly attended to, the system becomes ineffective or inoperable. This in turn can lead to landscape damage, which can become more costly to reverse than the irrigation repairs that would have prevented it.
When visiting your property, we’ll perform wet checks to locate any problems. These helps us determine where any repairs or modifications are needed.
We’re looking to balance the most cost-effective solutions while also ensuring the system is well-maintained. The goal is to provide preventative modifications and only minimal repairs.
Most of the problematic variables which have been described herein manifest over an extended period of time. We need to perform regular maintenance checks to find them after they manifest, but before they become costly to repair.
If you need professional help, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
