Broken and sunken heads
Mower strikes, frost heave and settling. A head sitting low waters the crown of the grass beside it and nothing else. Raised, straightened, or replaced with a matching nozzle.
Spring startup season
Sprinkler startup done slowly, so the system does not break on the first charge
Most spring sprinkler damage happens in the sixty seconds someone opens the main valve too fast. We charge the system gradually, walk every zone, and fix what the winter broke.
(970) 973-0235
Do this first
Open the main valve slowly; this is the whole trick
An irrigation system that has been empty all winter is full of air. When you throw the main isolation valve wide open, water rushes into that empty pipe at full street pressure, compresses the air ahead of it, and slams into the first closed zone valve like a hammer. That surge is what cracks fittings, splits the backflow assembly, blows heads off risers and unseats valve diaphragms.
The correct startup is deliberately slow. Crack the main valve open perhaps a tenth of a turn and leave it there. Listen. You will hear water moving and air escaping. Wait until the sound settles, which on a typical residential system takes several minutes, and only then open the valve fully. It is genuinely the single most important thing anyone does to an irrigation system all year, and it costs nothing but patience.
Before that, open the test cocks on the backflow assembly a turn or two so trapped air can escape as the line fills, then close them once water arrives. And walk the yard first: any head sitting visibly high, tilted, or missing its nozzle will simply be a fountain the moment pressure arrives.
From there it is a zone-by-zone walk. That is the part that takes time and the part where the winter’s damage actually gets found.
Book a startup visit
Charged slowly, zone by zone, with repairs handled the same trip.
The walkthrough
What we look at on every zone, one at a time
We run each zone from the controller and stand in the yard while it runs, because almost everything wrong with an irrigation system is visible for the sixty seconds it is under pressure and invisible the rest of the year.
We are watching for heads that do not pop up: blocked by soil, seized in the barrel, or starved of pressure by a leak upstream. For heads that pop up and stay up, meaning the retract spring or the wiper seal has failed. For misting, which means zone pressure is too high and you are losing half the water to evaporation and drift. For a doughnut of dry grass around a head, which is a wrong or clogged nozzle. And for soggy ground with no visible spray, which is a cracked lateral under the turf.
We check coverage overlap, because sprinkler design assumes head-to-head throw and a system that has had heads replaced piecemeal over the years usually has gaps someone has been compensating for by running every zone twice as long.
And we check rotation and arc on every rotor, since arcs drift out of adjustment and half the water ends up on the sidewalk. Getting that right is often the single biggest reduction in a summer water bill.
Watch it under pressureNearly every irrigation fault is visible for the minute the zone runs and invisible the rest of the year.
Freeze damage
What the winter actually broke, and where it hides
Even a properly winterized system takes losses. Water that could not be blown out sits in low spots, freezes, and expands. What we find each spring falls into a short list.
The backflow assembly is the most expensive casualty and the most common. A PVB left with water in the body cracks its bonnet or splits the brass. It often looks perfect until pressure hits it, and then it becomes a geyser. Always the first thing we inspect.
Valve manifolds in shallow boxes crack at the fittings, particularly the threaded PVC connections, which are brittle and split rather than deform. A wet valve box on a system that is not running is the tell.
Poly lateral lines generally survive because polyethylene stretches, but the barbed fittings at every joint do not. A cracked barb weeps below ground and shows up as a soft patch that is greener than the grass around it.
Heads and risers crack at the threads. Cheap heads left with water inside split their barrels and either fail to pop up or leak around the base continuously.
We pressure the system, then walk it looking for water where there should be none. Ground that is wet before any zone has run tells you more than anything on the controller.
Have freeze damage checked
Most repairs handled on the startup visit, not a second trip.
Water in the box A wet valve box on a system that is not running means a cracked fitting or a failed diaphragm.
Common repairs
Six things we fix during a typical spring startup
Failed solenoid valves
A zone that will not start, or one that will not stop. Usually a torn diaphragm, debris on the seat, or a burnt solenoid coil. All are serviceable without digging up the manifold.
Cracked laterals
Poly line split by freeze or a shovel. Found by the soggy patch and repaired with a coupling, no trenching required on most residential depths.
Wiring faults
Corroded splices in a valve box are the most common electrical fault. A zone that is dead at the controller but works on manual bleed is almost always wiring, not the valve.
Nozzle and arc correction
Mismatched nozzles cause dry rings and soaked sidewalks. Matching precipitation rates across a zone matters more than anyone expects.
Controller programming
Rebuilding schedules after a power loss, setting seasonal adjust, and getting cycle-and-soak right on our clay so water infiltrates instead of running down the gutter.
Watering here
How to schedule irrigation for Greeley soil and Greeley summers
Northern Colorado combines low humidity, intense sun, wind, and heavy clay soil in a lot of yards. Each of those pushes your schedule in a specific direction, and the factory default on a controller ignores all four.
Water deeply and infrequently. Short daily cycles keep roots in the top inch of soil, where they cook the first hot week in July. Longer runs every second or third day drive roots down and make the whole lawn more drought-tolerant.
Use cycle-and-soak. Clay accepts water slowly. Run a zone for eight minutes, let it rest twenty, run it again, and you get the same total water into the soil instead of down the driveway. Nearly every modern controller does this automatically, and almost nobody has it switched on.
Water very early. Between four and eight in the morning. Wind is lowest, evaporation is lowest, and the grass blades dry once the sun is up, which matters for fungal disease. Evening watering leaves turf wet all night.
Use seasonal adjust. One percentage setting scales every zone at once. Drop it in May and September, raise it in July. It takes ten seconds and saves more water than any other single control.
And check your local watering restrictions each season: the assigned days and hours change, and a well-programd controller on the wrong days is still a violation.
Ask about schedule setup
We program the controller for your soil and zones before we leave.
Backflow
Your startup and your annual backflow test belong on the same visit
Every irrigation system connected to municipal water in this area needs a backflow prevention assembly, and that assembly needs a test every twelve months. The test can only be performed with the system charged, which means spring startup is the natural time for it.
Doing both in one visit saves an appointment and catches the failure mode that matters: an assembly damaged over winter often passes water fine and fails its test badly. Without a test you would never know: the sprinklers run, the lawn is green, and the device protecting the drinking supply is not doing anything.
The same visit that charges your system can test the assembly, repair it if it fails, and file the report with the water district before your deadline.
If your assembly split over the winter, finding it during a controlled startup with someone standing next to the isolation valve is dramatically better than finding it when it lets go unattended at six in the morning.
Drip and beds
The drip zones nobody checks until the shrubs start dying
Drip irrigation in planting beds is where the most water gets wasted and the least attention gets paid, because unlike a spray head, a failed emitter produces no visible evidence at all.
Common faults: emitters clogged with mineral scale, which our water produces quickly; tubing chewed by rodents over the winter; the pressure regulator on the drip zone failed, so full line pressure blows emitters off the tubing; and the inline filter completely packed, starving the whole zone.
The symptom is always the same and always ambiguous, plants at one end of a bed struggling while the ones nearest the valve are fine. People water more, which drowns the healthy end and does nothing for the far end.
The check is to run the zone and physically look at emitters along the run. It is tedious, which is why it is skipped. It is also where a bed full of established shrubs gets saved for the cost of a handful of emitters and a new filter screen.
If your beds are on the same zone as turf, which happens on older systems; that is worth separating. Lawn and shrubs want completely different amounts of water, and one schedule cannot serve both.
No visible spray, no visible failure A clogged emitter looks identical to a working one until the plant it feeds starts dying.
Book before the first warm week
Startup season compresses into about three weeks each spring, and every irrigation crew in Weld County is booked solid through them. Systems charged in the first warm spell get repaired unhurried; systems charged in the rush get whatever slot is left.
If you also need your annual backflow test, book both together; it is one visit, one trip charge, and the compliance deadline gets handled while we are already there.
Related services
Related irrigation and outdoor work
Sprinkler Blowout & Winterization
The autumn half of the cycle, and the reason a spring startup goes smoothly or badly.
See details →Backflow Testing & Repair
Annual testing, filed with your water district. Best done at startup.
See details →Outdoor Faucet & Hose Bib Repair
Freeze-split sillcocks and stuck vacuum breakers, found the same week as your sprinklers.
See details →Water Line Repair & Replacement
When the wet patch in the yard turns out to be the service line, not a lateral.
See details →Pressure Regulator Repair
Misting heads across every zone usually mean whole-house pressure is too high.
See details →Leak Detection
For a running meter with no sprinkler zone active and no visible source.
See details →
Where we work
Where startups find winter damage
West Greeley
Systems charged too fast in spring, which finds every cracked fitting at once.
Area details →Windsor
Town deadlines that make startup and the annual test one visit.
Area details →Milliken
Assemblies in shallow boxes that took frost damage over winter.
Area details →Johnstown
Two counties, two districts, and paperwork that has to go to the right one.
Area details →Not on the list? We cover Greeley, Weld County and the northern Front Range, see every service area.
Sprinkler startup questions
Once the risk of a hard freeze has meaningfully passed: typically late April into early May, though it varies year to year. Charging the system before a late freeze puts water back into the backflow assembly and the shallow laterals, which is exactly what winterization was meant to prevent. Watch the ten-day forecast rather than the calendar.
Yes, if you open the main isolation valve very slowly: a fraction of a turn, then wait several minutes for air to escape before opening fully. Rushing that is what cracks backflow assemblies and blows heads off. Bleed the backflow test cocks as it fills, then walk every zone. The charge is the risky part; the walkthrough is just time.
About an hour on a typical six to eight zone residential system if nothing is broken, longer if we are making repairs. The charge itself is only a few minutes; most of the time goes on walking each zone, checking coverage, adjusting arcs and correcting nozzles.
Three usual causes. The solenoid valve diaphragm has torn or fouled. The solenoid coil has burnt out. Or the field wiring has corroded at a splice in the valve box. A quick test tells us which: if the zone runs when the valve is bled manually but not from the controller, it is electrical, not mechanical.
Zone pressure is too high for that nozzle. Misting means a large share of the water evaporates or blows away before it lands, so you are paying for water the lawn never gets. It is corrected with pressure-regulating heads or a regulator on the zone, and it usually indicates high whole-house pressure worth checking at the same time.
No. Shut the system down. A spraying assembly is either cracked from the winter or has a failed internal seal, and in both cases the device is no longer protecting the drinking supply, and you are losing a lot of water. This is the most common freeze casualty we replace each spring.
Yes, and that is the point of doing it properly. Most head, nozzle, riser and lateral repairs are handled on the same visit. Larger work: a cracked manifold, a failed backflow assembly needing a replacement device: may need parts, and we will tell you on the spot what that means.
Deeply and infrequently: two to three longer sessions per week rather than a short daily run, with cycle-and-soak so our clay soil actually absorbs it. Water between four and eight in the morning. Then use the controller’s seasonal adjust to scale everything up in July and down in May and September.
Yes, and it is the sensible way to do it, the test requires a charged system anyway. One visit can charge the system, test the assembly, repair it if it fails, and file the report with your water district in a single visit.
Very possibly. A cracked lateral underground can dump hundreds of gallons per cycle into the soil with almost no surface evidence beyond a patch that stays soft. So can a valve that does not fully close and weeps continuously into a zone. Shut the irrigation main and watch the meter, if it keeps moving, the leak is elsewhere; if it stops, it is the sprinklers.
Call (970) 973-0235
Startup and your annual backflow test can be one visit.
Ready to charge the system for the season?
Slow, controlled startup, zone-by-zone repairs and your backflow test in one visit.
(970) 973-0235Answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the year.