Having a beautiful property takes an investment, an investment of time and money. Whether it is your home, a small property, a master-planned community, ball field, park, or roadway, you are spending good money on sod, plant material, and an irrigation system.

When you make your landscape commitment you need to protect that investment. The best way to do that is to budget for regular, comprehensive irrigation maintenance.

Create an Irrigation Maintenance Budget

Proper irrigation maintenance should be an important part of any site management plan. Not only is maintaining your current irrigation system key to keeping the vegetation green and blooming, but it will also save you money in the long run. Many costly issues faced by property owners or managers could be avoided with regularly scheduled irrigation maintenance.

Having regularly scheduled irrigation maintenance is a proactive way to protect your irrigation system and your plant material. What happens when you have a bad sprinkler head or two, clogged nozzles, a zone does not turn on, etc.? The end result could be a loss of sod or plant material. It is the domino effect because if your irrigation system does not run properly, plants, grass, and trees could die. These items are costly to replace.

Irrigation Maitenance Musts

What should you be looking for during an irrigation maintenance period? It is simple and straightforward. Here are some items that should always be checked regarding your irrigation system during a maintenance visit.

Controller – irrigation technician should check the controller to ensure it is operating properly and that the rain shut-off device is connected and working. You also need to check the programming and make any needed adjustments are needed. Some smart controllers can throw alarms (of issues) that can be seen from the controller itself.

Irrigation zones – irrigation technician should walk each zone and look for any clogged zones, broken heads, etc. and make all necessary repairs. You also need to check for any coverage-related issues. Are correct nozzles being used? Are there are hot spots (areas not receiving enough water) due to poor coverage or lack of coverage?) While walking zones, identify any lateral breaks and make repairs. Does your property have low volume (drip) irrigation? Animals can chew through the drip tubing or weed whackers can wreak havoc as well. These are simple and easy repairs you can make on the fly.

Are control valves functioning properly? If not, why? This could be a failed solenoid or even worse, a wiring issue. Any leaking valves or manifolds? These are issues, if not repaired, that could have an entire zone down or not working properly until fixed. Again, think of dominos and what happens if your sod or plant material does not get water when a zone is completely down.

Pressure – how is the water pressure when running? If pressure looks light you likely have a leak somewhere in the system. It could be the mainline or lateral break (if it is zone line pressure that looks low).

Are there filters and how often are you cleaning them? It’s proper to have a filter on drip zones and these filters need to be cleaned. Some properties have filters before the manifold. Depending on the water quality your site is pulling from, these filters need to be cleaned as much as once per month.

Knowing how to maintain your irrigation system is step one to preserving your lush landscape. Regular, professional irrigation maintenance will identify issues within your irrigation system. As an owner or property manager, it is always helpful to be aware of the landscape around you and to have an understanding of how the irrigation system should be running. Property owners/managers benefit from understanding the generalities of their irrigation systems so they may monitor the day-by-day working of their irrigation system and alert their irrigation maintenance specialist of any problems before they compound into larger, damaging issues.

Commercial irrigation systems cover a much larger area than a residential irrigation system. Commercial systems can be small in size or they can be absolutely enormous. What kind of budget do you have? If you do not have a budget, one needs to be created and funded. Is your system older, relatively new, or brand spanking new? If older, what kind of irrigation repairs have you made in the past, and how does your landscape look? Ask yourself these things and come up with a plan and budget.

Depending on your system and landscape needs, maintenance can be determined. Proper irrigation maintenance can be done monthly, bi-monthly, or even quarterly.

A blooming and blossoming green landscape will leave a lasting impression and is easy to sustain with proper irrigation maintenance.

Contact Irrigation Technical Services now for maintenance on your irrigation systems before the Florida heat takes hold, and your lawn and landscape pay the price.