Drip Irrigation Repair

Drip is the most efficient way to water beds, shrubs, trees and containers, because it puts water at the root zone with almost nothing lost to wind or evaporation. It is also the part of an irrigation system most likely to be neglected, for one simple reason: you cannot see it working.

A broken spray head announces itself with a geyser. A drip zone with half its emitters plugged looks exactly like a drip zone working perfectly. The first sign is usually a plant in decline.

Drip also depends on two components spray zones do not really have: a filter, because emitter orifices are small enough to be blocked by grit that would pass straight through a nozzle, and a pressure regulator, because drip operates at a fraction of normal system pressure and full pressure will blow emitters off the tubing or split the line. When a drip zone misbehaves, those two parts are where we look first.

Symptoms homeowners notice

• Plants declining or dying in a bed that is supposedly irrigated
• Some emitters dripping while others on the same line do nothing
• Water pooling at one spot in a bed
• Tubing visible on the surface after mulching or bed work
• Emitters blown off the tubing, or tubing split lengthwise
• A drip zone that no longer seems to run at all
• Chewed or severed tubing under mulch
• Beds staying soggy while shrubs still look stressed
• A drip zone converted from spray that has never worked properly
• Tubing that has been pulled loose by weeding or planting

The most likely causes

• Clogged emitters. The most common drip failure. Grit, mineral scale, algae and root intrusion block orifices that are deliberately tiny. A neglected or failed filter accelerates it dramatically.
• Failed or missing filter. Drip cannot run reliably without filtration. A clogged filter starves the zone; a missing or bypassed one guarantees clogged emitters.
• Failed pressure regulator. Too much pressure blows emitters off the tubing and splits the line. Too little, or a regulator failing closed, means nothing reaches the far end of the run.
• Cut or pulled tubing. Weeding, planting, edging, bed renovation and mulch removal all pull, kink or sever drip tubing, which usually sits at or just under the surface.
• Rodent damage. Tubing under mulch is chewed by voles and mice, producing leaks that soak one spot and starve everything downstream.
• UV degradation. Tubing left exposed to sun becomes brittle and splits. Drip is designed to sit under mulch, and tubing that has surfaced will fail eventually.
• Runs too long for the flow. Extending a drip line past its design length leaves emitters at the far end with insufficient pressure to deliver their rated flow.
• Wrong run times. Drip applies water slowly by design. A drip zone given a spray zone’s run time delivers a small fraction of what the plants need — a scheduling fault, not a hardware one, and a very common one after a spray-to-drip conversion.
• Mixed emitter types on one zone. Different flow rates on the same line water unevenly, so some plants are drowned while others stay dry.

How a technician diagnoses it

• Drip diagnosis is patient work, because the zone has to run long enough for behaviour to show. Standing over a drip line for two minutes tells you very little.
• We start upstream, at the components drip depends on. The filter is opened and inspected — a clogged filter explains a starved zone immediately, and a fouled one predicts clogged emitters throughout. The pressure regulator is checked for output, since the difference between correct low pressure and full system pressure is the difference between a working zone and one steadily destroying itself.
• Then we run the zone and walk the line. Every emitter is checked for output: dripping at roughly the expected rate, dribbling, or dead. The pattern matters. Emitters failing progressively toward the far end of a run points at pressure or run length. Emitters failing randomly throughout points at filtration and clogging. Everything dead points upstream to the valve, filter or regulator.
• We look for leaks as well, which on drip show as one wet spot and a starved remainder — a split line or a blown emitter dumps the zone’s water at that point and leaves nothing for anything downstream. Tubing is traced under mulch by hand where necessary.
• Finally the schedule, because it is frequently the actual answer. Drip needs substantially longer run times than spray, and a converted zone running on its old spray schedule is a common reason plants decline in a system that appears to be working.

What the repair involves

1. Service the filter. Filter opened, cleaned or replaced. Nothing downstream is reliable until filtration works.
2. Check the pressure regulator. Output verified. A failed regulator is replaced before emitters are, because it is what destroyed them.
3. Run and walk the zone. The zone operated long enough to show real behaviour while every emitter is checked for output.
4. Repair tubing. Cut, split, kinked or chewed tubing repaired with proper barbed couplings, or the damaged section replaced.
5. Replace emitters. Clogged and failed emitters replaced, with consistent flow rates across the zone so plants water evenly.
6. Reposition for the planting. Emitters relocated to current root zones, since beds get replanted and emitters rarely get moved with them.
7. Bury and protect tubing. Surfaced tubing tucked back under mulch and secured with stakes, both to stop UV damage and to keep it out of the way of weeding.
8. Reprogram the zone. Run times set for drip application rates — considerably longer than spray zones — inside the Georgia watering window.
9. Flush and verify. The line flushed at its end to clear grit, then the zone run again to confirm even output.

What affects the cost

Drip repair is usually modest in parts cost and variable in labour, because the labour is time spent walking lines and finding emitters under mulch.

• Total length of drip tubing and number of emitters on the zone
• How much tubing is buried under mulch and has to be traced by hand
• Whether the filter, pressure regulator or both need replacing
• Number of emitters needing replacement, and whether the whole zone needs re-emitting
• Whether damaged tubing can be coupled or a section needs replacing
• Whether the zone layout still matches the planting or needs reconfiguring
• Bed density — mature, heavily planted beds take longer to work in
• Whether the zone is being extended or reconfigured rather than just repaired

For published rates and general North Georgia market ranges by repair type, see the Georgia irrigation repair cost guide.

Does this repair require digging?

Essentially none in the sense of excavation. Drip tubing sits at or just below the surface under mulch, so repairs mean moving mulch aside by hand and then replacing it. No trenching, no turf damage.

The exception is the supply line feeding the drip zone and the valve serving it, which are buried like any other zone. A fault there is standard valve or lateral work. The drip portion itself is hand work in the beds.

How long does it take?

Filter and regulator service is quick. Repairing a known break in tubing is quick. What takes time is walking a long drip run, checking every emitter and tracing tubing under mulch in a dense mature bed — that is genuinely slow work and it is the only way to find which emitters have failed.

A modest drip zone with an obvious fault is often inside the first hour on site. A large system of drip zones that has not been serviced in years, where emitters need checking throughout and the layout no longer matches the planting, is a longer job. We would rather tell you that up front than check a third of the emitters and call it done.

Should the water be shut off?

Drip runs at low pressure and low flow, so a drip leak is far less urgent than a mainline problem — there is no burst, and the loss rate is small.

It is still worth acting on. A split drip line loses water continuously whenever that zone runs, drowns whatever is next to the break, and starves everything downstream. Setting the controller to OFF for that zone is generally enough while you wait for an appointment.

Close the irrigation isolation valve if water is escaping continuously with the system off, because that means the loss is upstream of the drip zone valve — a mainline or valve problem rather than a drip problem.

Will leaving it alone raise the water bill?

Drip faults are usually not the reason a bill spikes. Flow rates are low by design, so even a split line loses far less water per hour than a broken spray head or a weeping valve.

Where drip costs money is in plant replacement. A bed of established shrubs or a specimen tree lost because emitters plugged quietly over a season costs considerably more than the repair would have, and it takes years to replace. That is the real economics of drip maintenance.

Run times are the one place drip does affect bills, in both directions. A drip zone given spray-length run times underwaters and plants suffer. A drip zone left running for hours because someone overcorrected wastes water into already-saturated clay. Getting the schedule right is most of the value.

North Georgia considerations

Piedmont clay and drip are a good match, and a slightly tricky one. Clay holds water well, so drip’s slow application suits it and deep infrequent cycles work better than frequent short ones. But clay also drains slowly, so an overwatered drip bed stays saturated for a long time, and root rot on shrubs in a clay bed with an overgenerous drip schedule is something we see. Longer intervals between longer cycles is generally the right pattern here.

Mulch culture is the practical local factor. Beds across these neighbourhoods get remulched annually, and drip tubing gets raked, pulled and cut in the process. A large share of drip faults we find are simply mulch work — tubing pulled loose, emitters dislodged, a line severed by a bed edger. Tubing that is properly staked and tucked survives it much better.

Drip is also the right tool for two very common local situations. Slopes, where spray runs off clay before it soaks in but drip applies water slowly enough to infiltrate. And mature tree and shrub beds, of which there are many in these established neighbourhoods, where the canopy blocks spray and the root zone is where the water needs to go anyway.

Frequently asked questions

Related services

Where we do this work

Irrigation Medics covers Hall County and the Lake Lanier communities, the Gwinnett corridor through Duluth, Suwanee and Buford, and North Fulton and Forsyth. Rates are the same everywhere — see the full service area.