In general, it does not become cold enough in St. George to make it necessary to winterize your sprinkler system. But as this is not the case for the entire Southern Utah area that Stonetree works with and even St. George has cold years. So we felt it was important to help you recognize when and how you should go about winterizing your sprinkler system.
When To Winterize Your Sprinklers
To avoid damaging the investment your sprinkler system represents, you will need to watch the weather carefully. If you don’t and you have the first hard freeze of the season, it may be too late to save your sprinkler pipes.
A hard freeze in this instance is defined by being lower than 0 degrees Fahrenheit. While meteorology is a chancy science, you don’t need exact information to know when to blow out your sprinkler pipes. If you see the weather trending colder and colder, take the initiative and winterize your pipes. Your local news or The Weather Channel online can give you a fairly reliable forecast so you can stay on top of any winter surprises.
How To Winterize Your Sprinkler System
Winterizing your sprinkler system is unfortunately not as easy as just turning off the sprinkler timer and your outdoor water. You will need to follow a series of steps.
- First, you will need a few tools:
- Air compressor
- Air hose
- Hose adapter (as needed)
- Next, find your sprinkler hookups. There should be an open port. This is where you will connect your air compressor.
- Close off both of the valves attached to your sprinkler hookups.
- Remove the plug from the blow out port and attach the air compressor to the port.
- Manually open the drain valve for that zone of the sprinkler system.
- Turn on the air compressor for 45 seconds.
- Wait 10 minutes and then turn on the compressor again for 45 seconds.
- If you have several zones to your sprinkler system, repeat these steps.
Be sure not to just leave the compressor going. Without the water to cool the gears, the fast-moving air can melt the plastic gears and you won’t find out until spring that they were damaged.
While it can be something of a hassle, it is important to make sure you protect your sprinkler system. While Stonetree can always repair your carefully designed landscaping, it would be easier to just take care of it in the first place.
