When your sprinkler system stops doing its job, the lawn tells you about it before anything else does. The trouble is most homeowners don't know what they're looking at — so a small problem becomes a big one over a few months.
Here's how we read the most common signs.
Brown Patches in a Specific Spot
This almost always means coverage. A nozzle is clogged, a head is buried, or a head got bumped sideways by a mower. Run that zone manually and walk it. You'll find the culprit in two minutes.
Fix: replace or adjust the head. Cost: usually under $40 per head, parts and labor.
Wet Spots Days After the System Ran
That's a leak. Either a valve isn't sealing all the way and water is trickling through 24/7, or you have a cracked lateral pipe somewhere downstream of that valve.
Fix: trace it. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes; sometimes we have to dig. Either way, a leak that's been going for a month is wasting hundreds of gallons.
A Whole Zone Won't Run
Usually a bad solenoid (the little black coil on top of the valve). Easy fix — solenoids are $15 parts. Sometimes it's a wire that got cut by a landscaper or a yard project; that takes longer to find.
A controller error code can also point to a wiring fault, but most of the time it's the solenoid.
Heads Spinning Way Too Fast or Way Too Slow
Gear-drive rotor heads (the spinny ones) wear out internally. The gears either bind up or strip. Pop them off, replace, done. $25-$40 per head depending on brand.
The System Won't Start at All
First thing: check the GFCI outlet the controller is plugged into. Press the RESET button. About a third of "my system died" calls are actually a tripped outlet from a thunderstorm.
Next: check the power LED on the controller. Dead controllers happen, especially after lightning strikes. New basic controller installed: $120-$180.
If both of those check out and nothing runs — call us. Beyond that, you need a multimeter and zone-by-zone testing.
Water Bill Climbed for No Reason
A stuck-open valve is the most common cause. Water trickles past 24/7, slow enough you'd never notice it walking the yard, but it adds up to hundreds of gallons a month.
The test: shut off the system at the controller. Wait 24 hours. Walk the yard. If you find a soggy patch — that's your zone. Call us.
When You Call Us
Describe what you're seeing — "three brown patches near the driveway," "zone 3 doesn't run," "soggy ground near the back fence." That's almost always enough to tell us what we'll need on the truck. We don't make you guess and we don't make you describe it perfectly. Just call.