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How To Maintain Your Sprinklers As Winter Approaches
In order to maintain a green and healthy lawn without exhausting oneself, it is important to install a sprinkler system, which usually comprises a pump unit that is responsible for providing the necessary pressure to deliver water to the pipe system.
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For optimum performance, the pump must be connected to a permanent water supply source. The main and secondary pipes create the water delivery channels from the pump to the laterals.
Pipes can either be dug underground or be left on the surface – sprinklers, then, are the water-emitting devices that convert water from the pipes into droplets that are disseminated widely, in order to ensure the proper distribution of water on the soil surface.
The Benefits of a Sprinkler System
Precisely how sprinkler system benefits your lawn is contingent upon the type of irrigation you’re striving for, as well as the greenery which you’re hoping to keep looking plush and lively – when compared to conventional watering systems, the primary advantage offered by an automated system is a more convenient and less hands-on watering experience.
With the implementation of automatic sprinklers, you are able to set a timer that will automatically activate the watering systems according to your own unique schedule. Additionally, when you fix a permanent sprinkler system around your homestead, you can maintain an aesthetic and safe environment; indeed, no one finds a garden that’s replete hoses, running from one end to the other, particularly attractive.
Automatic systems, on the contrary, possess pop-up sprinkler heads that only appear when the pump is in use; they disappear into the ground once the watering process ends.
Since it is normally recommended to water plants early in the morning, you can be able to set automatic sprinklers to only work early in the morning. This reduces water loss through evaporation and the spread of diseases is also minimized in the process.
Benefits of sprinkler systems with advanced technology are able to automatically switch on after sensing the moisture in the soil. This is meant to optimize water usage and minimize the cost of watering your lawn.
Sprinkler systems are also known to conserve the nutrients in the soil and maintain the structure of the soil. They also help in avoiding compacting of the soil since they produce small water droplets. Compacted soil tends to bring about suffocation of plants.
Maintenance Of Irrigation System in Winter
While all of the benefits of sprinkler system may sound incredibly alluring and hands-off to the average homeowner, this is only true in warmer months. Indeed, a pressing concern for owners of sprinkler systems is the possibility, if not inevitability, of freezing in the wintertime.
No doubt, you can deactivate the water for the entirety of the cold season, but the pipes are nevertheless installed in the cold, hard ground. Irrigation system maintenance and winterization is therefore vital if one is to stave of damage to the irrigation system caused by extreme temperature fluctuation.
To avoid this dire scenario, water must be extracted from the system itself; there are several methods one can undertake to drain one’s system of water.
For those who are unaware of what sprinkler system they are using, it's best for them to use the blowout method since it can be used on any system. With the automatic drain method, automatic drain valves are normally installed at the end and low points of the pipes.
Once you shut the irrigation water supply and open the drain valves, the water drains out of the whole system. In the manual drain method, you are required to open all the manual drain valves after shutting off the water supply, whenever you want to drain the pipes.
The blow out method uses compressed air to empty water from the pipes. It is worth noting that extreme caution needs to be maintained when blowing out water using compressed air during occasional irrigation system maintenance.
Conlusion
It is also important to open and close the valves of the piping’s vacuum breaker in order to ensure that any trapped water or air pressure can escape. Although winterization is vital, it is only a minor setback within an otherwise fully-automated system; it ought not to detract from the many benefits that any property owner can reap from a well-maintained set of sprinklers.
About the Author Laura Bennett
Hello, I’m Laura Bennett. I love nature especially when it comes to flowers and different kinds of plants. I started a very small garden behind my house and I named it Humid Garden. So, I created this blog to provide aspiring and inspiring thoughts about gardening for gardeners and anyone who has the intention of keeping a garden.
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