Sprinkler System Spring Startup
- Open The Water Supply Valve: The sprinkler system’s water supply valve should have been shut off during the winterization process and the drain plug will have been removed. Before opening the supply, the drain plug must be resealed and inspected as this is also a common failure point. Faulty supply valves that have failed over the winter will be identified and reported upon assessing any damages.
- Turn On The Controller: In most cases, the sprinkler controller gets deactivated, or set to “off” during the winter months, in some cases it may have been disconnected from external components. To begin the spring startup process, the controller will need to be connected and activated to engage the zones.
- Turn On The First Zone: By manually turning on a sprinkler zone, the controller will trigger the valve for that zone to open letting water into the lines.
- Bleed The System: Bleeding the system is the process of exiting all air out of it. Now that water is flowing through the lines again, we must ensure all the air is out of them. Air in the lines can cause unexpected or inconsistent action from the sprinkler heads.
- Check For Leaks: While the zone is on and the bleeding process is being performed, we’ll also visually check areas for leaks.
- Adjust Sprinkler Heads: While the zone is still running, we’ll check that each sprinkler head is functioning correctly including the amount of flow, positioning of the spray, and amount of rotation for rotor heads. We’ll make adjustments to the sprinkler heads if needed. This can be as simple as resetting the spray pattern or as complicated as identifying a faulty head that needs to be replaced.
- Repeat For Each Zone: Generally, sprinkler systems run as multiple zones. This is because your water main doesn’t have enough pressure and flow to run all your sprinkler heads at the same time, especially without causing issues with water pressure at your indoor faucets and fixtures. So we must simply perform the spring startup procedures for each zone, one after another.
- Adjust The Controller Settings: Once we’ve verified the entire sprinkler system is working properly for each zone, and clear of any equipment failures or leaks, we’ll configure the controller to make sure it has that each zone is set for the correct length of run time and schedule for the sprinkler run program to begin at your preferred time of day.