Welcome to Las Vegas and our extreme landscape!
Here in Vegas we use sprinkler systems in the grass areas and drip systems in most planter areas.
The drip systems are more efficient and use much less water. If they are installed properly, they can do a great job and last for up to 10 years or more. The one thing I noticed in Las Vegas is that the quality of sprinklers and drip systems (that are installed) are usually under par. People either do not know what they are doing or try to go cheap and just properly install them.
If a drip system is installed properly you can have hundreds of plants on one station.
That’s right: ONE station.
The problem is that most people do not know what they are doing. Another thing people or the competition does wrong is that they will install the thinner or cheaper pipe in for the lawn sprinklers. This will cause you a lot of headaches down the road. One little thing that we have always done to insure a better install for our lawn sprinklers is we always use the thicker pipe, and we always install larger or taller popup heads in the lawn area and finally we always choose swing joints to the sprinkler heads.
These 3 things will guarantee we do not have to come back to a job for years. The reason our drip systems can handle so many plants on them is that we use low pressure emitters which eliminates the problem of the first plant and the last plant on the line getting different amounts of water. They will all get the same water at the same time and the main line for the drip will last longer as the piping is under less stress.
So as you can see if you do the project right the first time it will last you much longer with less hassles.
Irrigation and sprinkler repair is critical this time of year. People are very busy and do not do the proper checks and maintenance on their sprinkler systems.
Las Vegas is the type of environment that is very harsh and things need to be checked from April through October.
When checking your sprinkler system you want to check from the timer/clock (which is usually located in the garage and sometime outside on the side of your home). When you check the irrigation you want to turn on each valve or station on one by one and check the operation of each one.
I recommend that for grass you need to check the system weekly and with the plants or drip system you can check the system monthly. If you take the time to do it now before it gets hot it most likely will work throughout the summer.
The reason you check from the timer is that if it doesn’t come on or doesn’t come on at the normal rate then most likely the valve is going bad or there is a break in the line.
When you have Cacti Grounds Management maintain you yard we do this for you. If you are not yet a Cacti customer, call us at 370-5000 and for only $40 we can evaluate the entire yard, not just the sprinkler system.
Remember that if you take care of your sprinkler system and watch the plants for stress, this will help you 80% of the time. When you don’t pay attention to the yard you will pay for this in the long run…
