How to Avoid Wasting Water With Your Sprinkler System

Tired of your lawn turning brown and ugly during the hot summer months? It can be frustrating since your lawn is critical to your home looking its very best. One solution is to install an irrigation system or as it is more commonly called, a sprinkler system. However, water is a valuable resource and there is no reason to use more than you need. Keeping a few tips and concepts in mind can help you maximize your water usage.

The first thing to do is inspect your sprinkler heads. Look for broken or cracked heads and replace them. Damaged sprinkler heads can leak when not in use or will spray water ineffectively and overwater certain portions of the yard while under watering others. When you find a broken part or head, take it with you to the home improvement store to make sure you get an exact match. Broken sprinkler heads can be minimized by not stepping on them or running lawn mower wheels over them. Once or twice generally won't hurt but repeated abuse will eventually cause the head to fail.

Next, adjust each sprinkler head's spray pattern. Typically, you can adjust the patter to spray in a quarter, half, three-quarter or full circle. The goal is not ensure that the spray patterns are not including sidewalks, streets or other hard surfaces where the water simply runs off and is wasted.

Once your heads have been adjusted, you need to figure out how much water you need for your lawn. This is easily done with a runoff test. Simply, turn on your sprinkler system, note the time and observe. After a period of time water will begin to pool in certain areas of your lawn. Note how much time has passed. This is the amount of time you need to water your lawn. Allowing the system to run longer than this period results in wasted water, as it is not able to enter the saturated ground and runs off your lawn and into the storm sewer. Set your timer to run your system indicated by the run-off test.

Finally, it is best not to water your lawn at mid-day. With the sun beating down much of the water will be wasted to evaporation. The best time to water is the morning when evaporation losses will be minimized.

Hopefully, these quick tips will keep your lawn looking vibrant green without the unnecessary loss of water.

For more information on home sprinkler and irrigation systems please visit www.advancedirrigationmn.com.

Article independently authored by Eric Parish. The content herein may or may not reflect the views and opinions of Advanced Irrigation of Minnesota.