A sprinkler system runs mostly underground and mostly while you're asleep, so problems rarely announce themselves. By the time most people call us, the system has been wasting water or starving part of the yard for weeks. The good news is that nearly every symptom points to a specific cause. Here are the seven we see most often around the East Bay, and what's usually behind each one.
1. A soggy patch that never dries. If one spot stays wet or muddy days after the system last ran, there's almost always a leak underground: a cracked lateral line, a broken fitting or a head that has snapped off below the surface. On clay soil the water can travel before it surfaces, so the wet spot isn't always right over the break. We find it by running that zone and following the water.
2. Brown or dry strips in a green lawn. Dry patches in a regular pattern, such as along the driveway, between heads or at the far edge of a zone, usually mean a coverage problem rather than a lack of water. A head is clogged, tilted, buried by grass or blocked by a shrub that has grown in front of it, so its spray no longer reaches the next head. Adding more minutes to the whole zone just overwaters the rest of the lawn. Re-aiming, raising or replacing the heads fixes it.
3. Heads that don't pop up or spray sideways. A head that stays down, sticks halfway or sprays off at an angle is worn out, packed with dirt, or has been knocked by a mower or car tire. It's a small repair, but when several heads are like that, the whole zone loses coverage.
4. A zone that won't turn on. When one zone is dead and the rest work, the problem is usually at that zone's valve: a failed solenoid, a broken wire splice underground, or a diaphragm that won't open. If no zones work at all, look at the controller and its power first.
5. A zone that won't turn off. This one is urgent, because it can run all night. It usually means the valve diaphragm is torn or has debris stuck under it, so it can't seal. Shut the water off at the valve or the main and call us. We're available 24/7 for exactly this reason.
6. Low pressure on one zone. If one zone barely sprays while the others are fine, there's either a leak on that zone bleeding off pressure, a partly closed valve, or too many heads on one line for the water supply. A properly designed system never puts more heads on a zone than the pressure can support.
7. A water bill that jumps for no reason. An unexplained increase on the bill, especially in summer, is often the first sign of an underground leak or a valve that's weeping water all day. It's worth checking before the next bill arrives.
Older systems, twenty or thirty years old, often have several of these problems at once, and the valve manifold is usually the weak point. When valves are cracked, corroded or buried in mud, rebuilding the manifold with new valves, clean PVC and proper unions is often cheaper over the next few years than chasing one failure after another. We'll tell you honestly which situation you're in.
If you're seeing any of these, call Garcia's Sprinkler System at (510) 472-5942 for a free estimate. We work in Hayward and across the East Bay and Tri-Valley, and we're available 24/7.