May 122012
It’s that time of year when it’s time to start up the lawn sprinkler system. See the checklist below for tips when starting up your sprinkler system.
- Before turning on your water at the stop & waste valve or your main sprinkler valve, manually start your sprinkler timer on the station that is the farthest away from the main sprinkler valve. This will bleed the air from the supply lines of your sprinkler system.
- Turn on the main sprinkler valve. If it is a stop & waste valve make sure you get the valve completely on or the stop & waste valve will leak. Check the stand pipe of your main/stop & waste valve and make sure no water is filling up the stand pipe.
- With the air out of the system, return to the sprinkler timer and manually start the sprinkler system again beginning with station 1. Check the heads on station 1 and make sure there are no bad, faulty, leaking heads. Adjust the sprinkler heads as necessary.
- After checking station 1, advance through the rest of the sprinkler stations checking for faulty, leaking heads.
- Go to each valve box, remove the lid, and check the valves and manifold connections for leaks.
- After checking all the sprinkler zones and valve boxes, adjust the timer settings for each station for springtime watering. You probably won’t have to water as long in the spring as you do in the heat of the summer. Tip: If your timer has water budgeting, you can reduce all of the stations watering times by percentage. If your water budgeting is set at 100%, you could reduce it to say 60% for spring time watering. This way you adjust all of the stations watering times in one step.
- Make sure your start time for watering the lawn is set for early morning watering or late evening watering. Watering during the day wastes water due to evapotranspiration.
Click here to see my YouTube video on starting up a sprinkler system.
Happy watering!