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Winter-Proof Your Irrigation System to Safeguard Your Greenbacks AND Your Greenery

If you’re managing a commercial property located in a region where temperatures drop below freezing during the wintertime, this is the season to safeguard your plants, shrubberies, trees and turf right along with your landscape management budget by making sure your irrigation system is winterized the right way. 

So, we asked irrigation expert and owner of U.S. Lawns Toledo, Tom Curdes to enlighten us on first, why a well-functioning irrigation system is so important; and secondly, how proper winter irrigation shutdown services should take place as well as why improper winterization can create major problems. 

A Well-Functioning Irrigation System Is Vital To Your Landscape Health

According to Tom (and he is so right!), “Irrigation is extremely important, especially during times like this last summer, when we’ve had drought conditions; and the big thing is, everybody wants a lush, green lawn, and especially with the warming trend that’s going on and as temperatures are getting hotter, if you don’t water, it’s going to go brown and go dormant on you–it’s just like putting yourself out there in the hot, nasty weather and not drinking water, what’s going to happen to you? The same exact thing happens with turf.”

So, in short, the reasons to make certain your landscape is being watered regularly are:

Plant Health & Longevity – proper hydration ensures your plants remain healthy and root systems remain strong, ultimately ensuring beautiful plants, bushes, trees and grass that will flourish throughout the entirety of their expected lifespans. 

Protection Of Your Landscaping Investment – replacing unhealthy greenery can become very costly, especially when you figure in the purchase price of the plant materials and the costs associated with installation and any special soil amendments or other care necessary to ensure they take hold and thrive.  

How Much And How Often Should You Be Watering Your Landscape? 

It’s also crucial that your flora is getting the right amount of water, since too much water can lead to disease, fungus and rot, while too little water can have equally adverse effects. 

Just to give you an example of how much irrigation is necessary and how often it should happen, Curdes shared the way he handles watering on his own property: “We irrigate the lawn here at our office six days a week, and we typically run it for thirty minutes per lawn zone and ten minutes per bed zone. 

So, with the beds (the flowers, etc.) we run it ten minutes a day; with the turf we run it for thirty minutes a day, because we want a good, deep watering–the deeper the watering the deeper the roots of the turf go.” This point takes us right back to what we were saying earlier about water’s impact on plant health and longevity, because deeply growing, strong root systems are responsible for producing that thick, luxurious grass we all enjoy so much.

What Time Of The Year Should Your Irrigation System Be Operational?

Now, while we’re discussing the watering needs of your landscape, this is an opportune moment to mention that plants, trees, bushes and grasses all need their rest too, so when they go into their dormant state, they’ll require less hydration. This is fortunate, since irrigation systems need to be shut down during the winter, particularly in areas where lasting frigid temperatures are common. 

Curdes expands on the timing of irrigation system startup and shutdown services saying, “Here in Ohio, we typically start them up in mid to late April and then we start our shutdowns the first or second week of October. 

We want to make sure that they’re done before we get into really cold weather, because if you wait too late to shut it down and to blow the system out, unfortunately, pieces are going to freeze; being brass and/or poly or plastic, when the water freezes it’s going to crack them. If you crack a vacuum breaker, it is about a $200 part not including labor and time, and you can’t run a system without it; the same thing with the poly pipes where they come up out of the ground. If you don’t get all the water out and it freezes, it’s going to expand and it’s going to snap. Then, we’d have to go in and cut the piece out and put a new piece in, and it takes time to do, so good winterization of a system where you have temperatures that go below freezing, is a necessity.”

These are only a couple of ways a poorly managed irrigation system can become a headache and an expense, too, because a burst pipe or other breaks can cause costly damage to far more than just the landscape. 

What’s Involved In Winter Irrigation Shutdown?

So, is irrigation shutdown and winterization something U.S. Lawns Customers do themselves? Tom told us the majority of his customers prefer to leave it to the irrigation specialists because it requires special equipment and knowledge. Here is a quick rundown of what is involved: 

  • You must have a portable air compressor with the capacity to blow out the lines (some of which are very long) with enough strength to clear out all the water. 
  • You also need to know how much psi is enough but not too much, because if it is too low it won’t clear the lines, and if it’s too high it will blow out seals and possibly create other damage to sprinkler heads and other irrigation system components. 
  • The water source must be turned off, and this is major. Tom told us one of his customers is a homeowner’s association that engaged the city to turn off the water to their system, but there was a faulty valve that allowed water to leak into the system through the winter. The result was more than fourteen thousand dollars’ worth of damage–always confirm the water source is fully off.
  • It’s important to start and end at the right locations, to ensure you’re getting all the water out of the system and that each zone has been cleared. 
  • Ideally, each zone needs to be gone through again after the process has been completed, just to ensure there is no water left behind–this is a standard for U.S. Lawns and should be for every irrigation system services professional, too.
  • Winter shutdown is the time to go through each component as you’re blowing out the system so you can either replace or repair malfunctioning sprinklers and other parts as needed or document their locations so they can be taken care of during spring irrigation startup.
  • The final critical piece to remember is to tag the shutoff valve so someone doesn’t inadvertently turn the water to the irrigation system on during frigid temperatures because if the vacuum breaker freezes and breaks there could be water running for some time before anyone realizes it. 

Including Irrigation Shutdown And Startup In Your Commercial Landscape Management Plan Is A Wise Choice 

As a final recommendation from Tom Curdes, including winter irrigation shutdown and spring irrigation startup as core services in your commercial landscape management contract is just smart for your business. This way you’ll know your irrigation system will be functioning at peak performance while being protected from the elements, and you can count on the experts at U.S. Lawns to stay on top of things, so you don’t have to. Get in touch with us today to find out more! Your Turf. Our Lawn.

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