Reference · troubleshooting
What's wrong with my sprinkler system?
Something's off — a dry patch that won't green up, a water bill that jumped, a zone that went quiet, or a swamp that won't dry out. Tap what you're actually seeing below and I'll tell you the likely cause, how urgent it is, and whether it's a Saturday fix or worth a call. No sign-up, nothing sent anywhere.
A single broken head or a system quietly running in the rain can waste thousands of gallons a month — you just don't see it on the lawn, only on the bill. Catching the small stuff early is the whole game.
Tap what you're seeing
Pick every symptom that matches — you can choose more than one — then run the check.
What the common problems usually mean
A sprinkler system only shows you most of its problems while it's running, which is why so much goes unnoticed until the bill or the lawn forces the issue. Here's the plain-language version of what the usual symptoms point to.
Dry or brown spots, heads that won't pop up, weak spray — these are coverage issues: a clogged or broken head, the wrong nozzle, low pressure, or heads spaced too far apart. The lawn tells you where.
Constant wet spots, pooling, a jump in the bill, a geyser — water is escaping where it shouldn't: a cracked line, a leaking or stuck valve, or a head broken below ground. This one's worth chasing down fast.
A whole zone that won't run, or a system that won't start at all, is usually electrical — a valve solenoid, a wiring break, or a controller/power fault. Check power and the main valve first, then it's a pro fix.
Running in the rain means the rain/freeze sensor has failed or is missing — which wastes water every storm and puts you out of compliance, since a working sensor is required by state law.
What it's quietly costing you
Here's the part that makes fixing this worth it. A broken sprinkler head can push out far more water than an intact one, and it runs every single cycle until someone notices. A system watering through a rainstorm because the sensor died does the same. Neither shows up as a dramatic flood — it shows up as a water bill that's forty or sixty dollars higher than it should be, month after month, plus the foundation risk of soil that's either too dry in the brown spots or too wet around a buried leak. The repair almost always costs less than a season of the waste it stops.
Do it yourself, or call someone?
Plenty of this is honest DIY territory: cleaning a clogged nozzle, straightening or re-aiming a head, swapping a simple broken head. Where a pro earns the call is the stuff that costs more in guesswork than in parts — valves and wiring, hidden underground leaks, pressure problems, a dead zone, anything electrical at the controller. The self-check above will tell you which bucket you're in for each symptom. And if you'd rather just have it found and fixed in one visit — every zone run, every fault caught — that's exactly what a wet check is. The tool narrows it down; a wet check confirms it and handles it.