Water Conservation Tip No. 10

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You need to reassess your sprinkler system part way through the summer. This would be a great time to:

1. Watch all stations on your system to be sure plants are drying out at approximately the same rate. You may need to adjust watering intervals accordingly.

2. Check all heads to be sure they are precisely aligned and spraying good, clean patterns.

3. Raise heads if growth has covered them. If shrubs have grown tall in their beds it’s sometimes a good idea actually to trade to lower risers so that the heads can spray beneath the leaf canopies.

4. Check turf heads to be sure they are not blocked by grass. Hand-trimming will usually solve the problem for several weeks or months.

5. Check your controller to be sure it still reads the proper time. That’s particularly important if your city has watering restrictions during daylight hours.

6. Consider switching over to one of the "smart" controllers that uses weather monitoring to determine when and if it will run and for how long.

7. Watch for spots that remain dry or wet between waterings. Dry areas indicate heads that are too far apart or low water pressure. Wet spots, particularly if they’re at the lowest head on a given station, tell of a stuck valve, probably one that has a small pebble wedging it open slightly.

8. Monitor your water use and conserve in every possible way.