A sprinkler system is only as effective as the operator.  On average turf needs about 1″ of water a week and plants need between 1/2″ to 1″ depending on the plant type, grading and sun exposure.  An operator needs to adjust his/her control box weekly as the rainfall and temperature changes throughout the year.  The three biggest ways to save water are the following:
1)  Not activate the sprinkler system until May (if you have new plants, you can activate the system for the plant beds but it isn’t necessary for the grass).
2)  Listen to the radio and if you receive an inch of rainfall, turn the system off for 5-7 days or until you see signs of dryness on your property.
3)  Use soak and cycle strategies to reduce water run-off.

1)  Tenure as a company, 95% of most companies go out of business in 5 years.  New companies are learning on your job, their mistakes become your problem.  We recommend looking at companies that have been in business for a minimum of 5 years.

2)  Reputation, references are great but even better are public sites such as Washington Checkbook , Angie’s List and Service Magic.  These sites validate companies have the right licenses, valid insurance and give customers the ability to express their feedback on how their experience was with their contractor.

3)  Do they actively do work in your area? The actual installation is just the first step towards a good solution for your lawn.  Next, you need the company’s resources to train and retrain you on how to use the system and also how to properly maintain the system.  If you live in Mclean, it doesn’t make sense to hire a contractor based out of Maryland or Fredericksburg Virginia because servicing your service will always be difficult if they don’t service many customers in your area.

4)  How many systems do they install in a year  Every year, we receive hundreds of new customers who want a reliable company to service their company.  The typical reasons are vast ranging from the company went out of business, doesn’t return their phone calls, service technicians aren’t experienced, etc.  But the type of company is always consistent, small contractors!  The owner typically wears all the hats and there are too many (sales, project management, parts manager, accounts payable, accounts receivable, service manager, billing, receptionist, etc).  More often than not, they do a great job at sales and a decent job at installations but stink at the rest.  Remember, a warranty is only as good as the company.

5)  Are they certified irrigation contractors?  This is a national certification which contractors must sit for 2 days of class and pass a 4-hour exam.  The test covers proper backflows and installation, how to analyze water flow rates and pressure, irrigation design, safety, troubleshooting, etc.  We are surprised it isn’t a state law to be a Certified Irrigation Contractor, most states mandate contractors are certified.  Regardless, it is a great criterion to consider when selecting the right contractor for your system.

Yes. You won’t have to spend another minute of your valuable leisure time watering the lawn. Your new system will do all the watering for you – even when you’re away from home.

This is another area we are very unique.  We stagger are spray heads (some heads in front of the bed facing the house and other heads at the base of the house spraying away) for two reasons:  1)  It eliminates water shadowing (where plants/shrubs block water from hitting other plants) and 2) It reduces the amount of overspray on the foundation of your house.  Typically, it will increase the cost of the total system, but it is the best application for your landscaping today and tomorrow.  Nothing is worse than returning from a summer vacation and finding expensive landscaping dead from lack of water.

Before we begin working on any property, we will contact Ms Utility of Virginia 72 hours before we begin your project to mark the following utility lines:  water line will be marked in blue, gas will be marked in yellow, power will be marked in red, and cable and phone will be marked in orange.  Typically, the cable and phone lines are the only shallow utility lines, they are often only 2-3” deep in the ground.  As a measure of precaution from hitting your cable or phone lines, we will hand dig around all utility lines.  But, there are no guarantees that your phone or cable line won’t be damaged.  There is no way to guarantee that the line was accurately marked or we won’t hit the line hand digging with a pick and shovel.  If a utility line is hit, our project manager will promptly inform you and instruct you on how to resolve the issue.  Typically the cable and phone companies are very reactive in providing great service and schedule a service tech to your property right away and do not charge a fee.

A backflow preventer’s purpose is to protect your drinking water from the possible contaminants from your lawn. Think of how an inflatable raft works, you can blow air in, but no air can escape. The backflow works the same way, water can feed into your sprinkler system, but it cannot return back to your drinking water. This is a required device for ALL installations in Northern Virginia.

Without knowing your property, it is difficult to recommend the perfect watering schedule for everyone. But here is a good starting point:

1. Calculate the total time needed to water your entire property (take a sheet of paper, write down the time you will be watering each zone, add up the total time)
2. Evaluate what time your family begins using the water source in the morning (showers, dishwasher, laundry machine, etc). Take this time, subtract the total time needed to water your lawn and there is your recommended water time for your residence. We don’t recommend watering at night due to the possibility of getting fungus.
3. We recommend watering spray zones fewer minutes per week than rotors due to the constant water flow on spray. During the fall and spring, we recommend watering shrubs 2 x’s per week for 10 minutes, during the peak of summer, try watering 3x’s per week.
4. For rotors, we recommend watering in the fall and spring 3x’s per week for 15 minutes. During the summer, you should probably add 2 more watering sessions per week.

Please note, these are only recommended watering times, the best way to ensure the best program is to closely monitor your plants and lawn. If you find your plants and lawn starting to dry out or brown, you should add minutes. If you find your lawn to be really mushy and soggy, turn the watering time down.

Maintenance is important to ensure the system continually runs smooth. The most important service is the Fall Turn Off and the Spring Turn On. In the fall we will blow all the water out of the system to eliminate the risk of freezing pipes over the winter months. We also remove any pieces that have the risk of freezing and cracking. In the spring we come back out and hook the system back up and get it turned on. We also make sure no equipment or parts were damaged over the winter. Finally, we make sure that the system has overlapping coverage and all rotors and spray heads are aimed correctly. Please check out our service section for details on our Annual Service Agreement.

That depends if you are currently manually watering your lawn and shrubs. If you are, then no, you shouldn’t see a significant increase in your water bill. In fact, many customers have found decreases in their water bill after installing a lawn sprinkler system because running a sprinkler system is more efficient.

If you are a resident in Northern Virginia then you may not need a separate meter for your lawn sprinkler system. Many water authorities in northern Virginia use your average water sewage rate during winter months and apply this rate for your summer months. This is a logical solution to avoid having to pay sewage for the water you use outside your home during the warmer months. Please check with your local water authority for information on your specific situation.

Here are a few counties that we know that offer separate meters:

City of Alexandria

Arlington (budget $4000-6000) reduces water rate about $8 per 100 minutes of water usage

Town of Vienna (fairly simple and inexpensive, budget $500-1000)

City of Fairfax (fairly simple and inexpensive, budget $500-1000)

Montgomery County (WSSC) (budget $2,000 – 3000)

Please see the following FAQs on this subject: Fairfax County: http://www.fcwa.org/about/sewer.htm
Loudoun County: http://www.loudounwater.org/About/Understanding-Your-Water/Sewer-Bill/
Prince William County: http://www.pwcsa.org/documents/rates%20and%20fees/Cust_Ratebook_12pp_r5FNL08.pdf

Although you will find a mixture of companies using both types of material in the Northern Virginia area, we feel Poly Pipe is a superior product. PVC is recommended for warmer areas such as Florida, Georgia, California, etc. Poly Pipe is recommended for areas susceptible to long freezes. If you go to North Carolina, you will find all companies using PVC. If you go to Pennsylvania, you will find all companies using Poly Pipe. Northern Virginia is in the middle and that is why you find a mixture of both. We not only double clamp all our connections, but we also use stainless steel clamps and screws to prevent possible leakage.  Poly pipe is also a flexible pipe which holds up better to rocky soil climates.  Lastly, it comes in rolls of 300′ which reduces the number of connections needed.  PVC requires primer and cement every 20′ to connect the two pipes and this creates an opportunity for workmanship errors or glue to fall apart and clog the valves over time.  Lastly, we carry the longest warranty in the area for our pipe, 5 years!

This has been a hot topic for debate for years, very similar to trying to decide whether Bud Light taste better than Miller Light, the truth is most people could never tell the difference if you hid the sprinkler device from view. We feel both companies offer great products, this is why we are willing to customize your order. Often the quality level is more important than the brand name and both companies have different quality products. Think of Toyota, they manufacture the Tercel, Camry and Avalon. Make sure you are always getting the highest quality parts from both companies.  For my house, I went with the Rainbird ESP control box, DV100 Rainbird Valves, Rainbird 1800 Spray heads, and Rainbird 5004 rotor heads.

Yes, customers should request this from all contractors. A drawing will help you visualize and understand your system. Frequently, first-time buyers are unaware of how to select the best contractor so they focus mainly on the number of sprinkler heads and price. What the fail to consider is an improperly designed system is very difficult can be very expensive to fix. Here are things you should look for:

1. How far apart are the sprinkler heads (does the system provide head to head coverage)?
2. How many rotors and spray heads per zone?
3. Where are you going to install the valve boxes?
4. How many valves will be in each box?

Every one of our estimates will include a hand-drawn picture of your plat and our proposed sprinkler design.

It is difficult to give an exact price without reviewing your property’s needs. Here are a few things that affect pricing:

1. Plumbing:  The easier it is to connect to a main water line 3/4″ or greater, the cheaper the plumbing. There are three categories for plumbing:  inside, outside and outside with a sidewalk.
2. The shape of your property squares and rectangles are cheaper than trapezoids
3. Type of terrain:  amount of landscaping, terrain (rocky soil or areas with a large number of tree roots), and
4. Hardscaping (driveways, patios, walkways).

A general price range is listed below:

• 1/8 acre (6,000-8,000 sq ft including house) $4000-4500
• 1/4 acre (10,000-12,000 sq ft including house) $4500-5000
• 1/3 acre (14,000-16,000 sq ft including house) $5000-5400
• 1/2 acre (20,000-24,000 sq ft including the house) Can provide ballpark price by satellite
• 3/4 acre (34,000-36,000 sq ft including the house) Can provide ballpark price by satellite
• 1 acre (44,000 sq ft including the house) Can provide ballpark price by satellite

We install a free rain sensor with all of our systems. This device will deactivate your sprinkler system after ½ inch of rainfall.

We can work off almost any well. There are many pros and cons with using well water. Every well is different, and we do need a well report to determine, at a minimum, how much water is available. Most of our residential irrigation systems are designed to use about 8-10 gallons per minute. If your well has a recovery rate of less than 10 gallons per minute we can design a system to use less water by using less heads per zone or using lower volume type heads. We can also program systems to run shorter time lengths and then use a time delay between watering zones to allow the well to recover. One of the biggest benefits of using well water is that there is no water bill associated with your water use. Also, a lot of the minerals in the well water are beneficial for the lawn and garden. Using well water does bring its challenges, though. Many of the pumps that are used for homes are on the smaller side and pump less water. The pressure tanks can use pressure switches that run at the lower end of what is required to have an irrigation system. We can recommend upgrading to a constant pressure pump or installing a booster to help with this. Another challenge can be the sediment and/or iron count in your well, which can lead to future maintenance challenges like clogged or stuck valves. We recommend upgrading to dirty water type valves and or a type of filter for a solution if this becomes a problem.

For most of our installations, we use a Ditchwitch vibratory plow machine that puts a pizza knife type slice in the lawn and pulls the pipe to minimize yard damage. We will need to hand dig where every head is placed as well as around any of the marked utility lines. We also need to hand dig in plant beds. For most plant bed areas, we move the mulch back and can dig around the existing plants to install the lines so it’s very hard to tell we did any digging in those areas when we are finished. In the lawn areas, a lot depends on the the existing lawn and the temperatures when we do the work. If the yard is healthy, the soil is good, and the temperatures are cool, then the damage is minimal. If the yard is not in good shape, and/or we are working with rocky soil, you will see more visible signs of digging. If it’s extremely warm out, you will also see the lawn areas wilt and yellow after we are finished. We recommend lightly watering the yard before we install and keeping the yard wet after we install to help with the quick recovery of lawn areas.

Standard residential irrigation systems use a combination of water volume with pressure to function. At a minimum, we look for 10 gallons per minute at 55 psi. Most homes on municipality water have a pressure reducer installed on the home’s main waterline. The reason is that, on average, a 5/8” home water meter in most areas is producing more than 15 gpm at pressures near or above 70psi. The reducer is used to protect smaller in-home water lines like the refrigerator and or dishwasher lines. When we install our waterline for irrigation systems, we recommend whenever possible to install the tie-in below the home’s pressure reducer to have the volume and pressure we need for irrigation. Homes that don’t have the minimum pressure required can upgrade the pressure with a booster pump.

Yes, we have a master plumbing license and are licensed and capable of installing sub meters in Virginia when requested. Each municipality is different. For example: If you are a resident in Fairfax County and reside outside of a local town and you receive a County water bill, then it is unnecessary to install a sub-meter because the County uses your average winter use to lock in your sewer cost quarterly. Loudoun County has a similar policy. However if you live in a city / town limit, such as City of Fairfax or Town of Vienna, then you can apply for a sub meter with the municipality. We can install and help you through that process. There can be quite a bit of added expense to do this so it’s important to first look at the size of your lot to determine if this is a cost savings benefit overall. If you have a small property, it may take you years to reap the cost savings of installing a sub-meter.  Please ask our customer service and or sales representatives for more details.