Seasonal service

Spring Sprinkler Startup

Waking the system up properly, so the first thing you learn in April isn't that something cracked in January.

Call (201) 664-4640 Book a startup

When to open the system

Late March into mid-April, once the hard freezes are genuinely done. Opening early is a common mistake around here — one more cold night on a pressurized line, and a small crack becomes a burst one.

Why it isn't just turning a valve

Bringing a system up too fast sends a pressure surge through pipe that has sat empty all winter. If anything was weakened by the cold, that surge is what finishes it. We bring the pressure up gradually for exactly that reason.

What the visit covers

• Slow re-pressurization of the main line and each zone
• Running every zone and watching it, looking for winter damage, leaks and weak spots
• Cleaning filters and screens that collected debris over the winter
• Straightening and re-aiming heads that shifted, settled, or met a mower or a plow
• Reprogramming the controller for the growing season — days, start times and run time per zone
• Checking the backflow preventer came through the winter intact

What we find most often

Heads knocked out of alignment over the winter, a screen packed with grit, and cracked fittings on systems that were never properly blown out the previous fall. That last one is the argument for winterization in a sentence.

Setting the schedule right

Most lawns here want 1 to 1.5 inches of water a week, rainfall included — usually two longer cycles weekly, three in the peak of summer. Longer and less often drives roots deeper than a short run every morning. We'll set the controller up that way and show you how to adjust it when the weather turns.