Irrigation system maintenance for your lawn and landscape should be minimal if installed correctly.  Basic irrigation system maintenance includes a spring start-up and rpz test (reduced pressure zone).  Spring irrigation system start-up should include turning on your system, manually testing each zone and programming your controller.  A proper irrigation system start-up will check for head to head coverage.  It is important to make sure that your irrigation system is only watering the desired areas.  Some times it is necessary to adjust your irrigation heads so that they do not water parking areas or buildings.  If left un-adjusted, water from the irrigation system may damage non target areas.  It is important that your irrigation system be started up and maintained by a professional.  Un-trained personnel may leave your system watering too much or too little.

Irrigation System

Summer irrigation system maintenance.

Summer irrigation system maintenance should include monthly zone checks to ensure that the system is working properly.  Most likely, you will be able to tell right away if your system has a broken irrigation head because there will be an uneven watering pattern.  Your system should be adjusted on a regular basis to ensure that your lawn and landscape is receiving the proper amount of water.  This summer with the drought and high temperatures, there were some systems that could not keep up.  It was necessary to increase the frequency of watering and the length of time that the system ran.

When temperatures start dipping below 60 degrees F, it is time to start thinking about shutting down your system for the year.  Those of us that live in the northern climate will have to shut our systems down and blow out the irrigation lines.  Those of you that live in the southern climate, most likely will run your systems year round.  A fall shut down is important because it is necessary to blow out the remaining water in the irrigation lines so that it doesn’t freeze.  If your lines freeze, they may break and cause you many headaches in the spring.