Now is a great time to do irrigation system maintenance. Things to check for include bad valves, timer settings, timer backup batteries, leaking lines, broken or plugged emitters, damaged or plugged sprinkler heads (especially if you overseeded the lawn) and broken pressure regulators on drip lines. Our half-inch drip lines are ten years old and one has been splitting seams. My mission yesterday was to replace that entire line. However, upon opening the control valve boxes I discovered that the valve feeding the drip line to the trees had gone bad. We hadn't noticed but I'm sure the trees were feeling starved for water. There was also a bad pressure regulator on the line feeding our grapes which was responsible for flooding the irrigation valve box.
Instead of laying new drip line, I re-built the valve and backflow assembly on the two damaged lines. This is the third time the smaller, cheaper pressure regulators have failed, so I spent the extra money for a larger, better quality regulator (I have three of these that have gone ten years with no issues). Done! Now I know plants are getting water when the timer says so. Next weekend we'll do the line replacement.
