Thursday, July 13, 2006

Sprinkler Repair

Parts of my lawn are looking a little bare so I decided to double check the sprinkler system. After turning it on, I walked around and observed a few problems: one broken sprinkler head, and a few other ones that didn't look like they were working fully.

So, I called up a sprinkler repair company and they were able to send someone over in the afternoon. I met the crew and he did the same thing. Except he had flags with him and marked the location of my sprinklers. ;)

It turned out I needed six repairs: two partially broken sprinkler heads, one above ground pipe that stood behind some bushes and watered them, and three "popups" as he called them. These are really small ones, about the size of a dime, that peek up about one inch when the water is on. They are really hard to see or find unless the sprinkler system is on!

My sprinkler system is three zones: back/side yard, front yard bushes, and front yard. The timer can handle six zones total so if I got fancy and did more landscaping I could set up another zone for the timer to control.

Before he left he reprogrammed my timer and asked me how much time I wanted for each zone. I had it set for a total of 12 minutes before, and he looked at me in shock. He recommended a minimum of 60 minutes (!!) - 25 minutes for the back/side yard, 25 minutes for the front yard, and 10 for the bushes.

Wow, no wonder my lawn looks a bit stressed, I've only been watering it 20% of the time. Ugh it seems like a lot of water to throw onto the lawn. This area limits yard watering to two days a week - for me it is Thursday and Sunday since my address is even. At least we're getting into the rainy season so that will help out as well.

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