Irrigation System Inspection

The reason irrigation problems get expensive is that irrigation systems run at four in the morning when nobody is watching. A head spraying the driveway, a rotor that stopped turning, a valve weeping into a lateral — all of it happens in the dark, and the first evidence is usually a dead patch of lawn or a water bill.

An inspection is simply the act of watching. A technician runs each zone manually, stands there while it operates, and records what is actually happening: which heads are broken, which are sunk below grade, which are watering pavement, where coverage falls short, whether pressure holds up under load, whether the program makes sense for the season and the soil.

It is the least glamorous service we offer and frequently the most valuable, because the list it produces lets you fix a $20 nozzle now instead of resodding a section of lawn in August.

Symptoms homeowners notice

• You just bought the house and have no idea what the irrigation system does
• Dry or brown patches appearing despite the system running
• Water bills higher than last year with no obvious explanation
• Nobody knows which zone covers which part of the property
• The system has not been looked at in several years
• A previous repair was done and you want the rest of the system checked
• Soggy areas, mushrooms or moss where there should not be any
• You are selling the property and want the system documented
• A commercial property where the landscape is part of the presentation

The most likely causes

• Systems drift out of adjustment. Heads get knocked by mowers, settle with the soil, and get buried by mulch and thatch. None of it is dramatic, and all of it degrades coverage year over year.
• Landscapes change and irrigation does not. Beds get rebuilt, trees mature and shade what used to be full sun, patios cover what used to be lawn. The heads stay where they were installed.
• Small faults hide behind working zones. A zone that runs is assumed to be fine. A rotor that no longer rotates still sprays, so from a window it looks like it is working.
• Programs never get revisited. The schedule set at installation often runs for years, correct for neither the current season nor the current landscape.
• Repairs get done in isolation. A head replaced here and a valve there, with nobody ever looking at the whole system, leaves a collection of unnoticed faults.
• New owners inherit a mystery. Without documentation, nobody knows the zone layout, where the valves are, or where the isolation valve is — which matters enormously on the day something bursts.

How a technician diagnoses it

• An inspection is diagnosis, so the process and the diagnosis are the same thing. What matters is that it is systematic rather than a walk-around.
• We run each zone individually from the controller and stay with it. Heads are watched through a full rotation: does the rotor turn, does the spray pattern match the area, is the arc set where it should be, is the nozzle the right one, is the head at grade or sunk, is it misting from excess pressure or dribbling from too little.
• Coverage is assessed for head-to-head overlap, since irrigation is designed so each head throws to the next one. Where overlap has been lost — through a removed head, a wrong nozzle or an added patio — there will be a dry area no amount of extra run time fixes. On zones where uniformity is questionable, catch cups measure how much water actually lands in different spots rather than relying on how the spray looks.
• Pressure is measured static and under load. Valve boxes are opened and inspected for standing water, corroded splices and weeping valves. The meter is checked with everything off, which is the single best test for a mainline leak. And the controller program is read in full: run times, start times, seasonal adjust, rain delay, and whether everything falls inside the legal watering window.

What the repair involves

1. Walk the property first. Zone layout, head types, obvious damage, wet and dry areas noted before anything is switched on.
2. Locate the essentials. Controller, valve boxes, backflow assembly and the irrigation isolation valve identified and, where they are unknown, found and documented.
3. Run every zone individually. Each zone operated manually while every head is watched through a full cycle.
4. Check each head. Rotation, arc, nozzle, grade, alignment and condition. Minor adjustments are made on the spot.
5. Measure pressure and coverage. Static and operating pressure recorded; catch cups used where uniformity is in doubt.
6. Inspect valves and wiring. Boxes opened, water and corrosion noted, bad splices flagged, resistance readings taken at the controller where anything looks off.
7. Meter test for hidden loss. Everything off, controller off. A moving meter means water is escaping upstream of the valves.
8. Review and reprogram. The schedule is rebuilt for current season, soil and plant material, inside the Georgia watering window, with cycle-and-soak timing for clay.
9. Report findings. What works, what needs repair now, what can be scheduled later, and what to keep an eye on — with the zone map written down.

What affects the cost

Inspection cost tracks the size of the system, because every zone gets run and every head gets watched.

• Number of zones, since the time is essentially per zone
• Number of heads on the system
• Property size and how far apart the zones are
• Whether valves and the controller are accessible or need locating first
• Whether the system has documentation or has to be mapped from scratch
• Residential versus commercial, where larger sites and multiple controllers add time
• Whether minor adjustments and nozzle changes are handled during the visit
• Whether any repairs found are authorised and carried out the same visit

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

Does this repair require digging?

An inspection itself involves no excavation. Everything is observed from the surface or from inside accessible valve boxes.

Two exceptions worth knowing about. Heads that have sunk below grade or been buried under sod need to be dug out by hand to be raised, which is a trowel-sized hole, not excavation. And where an inspection cannot find a valve box at all, locating it may involve cutting a small piece of sod to confirm the find. If an inspection uncovers a problem that does need real digging — a mainline leak, a wire break — that is quoted as a separate repair.

How long does it take?

A typical residential system of six to ten zones takes roughly one to two hours to inspect properly, because each zone is run and watched rather than glanced at. Smaller systems are quicker; a sixteen-zone property on a large lot takes longer.

Add time where valves have to be located, where the system has no documentation, or where enough minor adjustments are needed that they become work in their own right. Commercial sites with multiple controllers are quoted individually. We would rather be honest that an inspection takes real time than rush one and miss the thing that mattered.

Should the water be shut off?

No shutoff is needed for a routine inspection — the point is to run the system.

If an inspection finds a mainline leak or a valve passing water, we will close the irrigation isolation valve before leaving and tell you it is closed, because those faults lose water continuously rather than only during run times. Part of every inspection is showing you where that isolation valve is, which is information a surprising number of homeowners do not have until the day they urgently need it.

Will leaving it alone raise the water bill?

Inspections pay for themselves most often through things nobody knew were happening. A head spraying a driveway at 4 a.m. Two overlapping programs so the system runs twice a night. A valve weeping into a lateral around the clock. A rain sensor whose wiring failed two seasons ago, so the system waters through every thunderstorm.

None of those announce themselves. The system appears to work, and the cost shows up on the bill rather than on the lawn. Running every zone in daylight while somebody watches is the only reliable way to find them.

The other saving is preventive: a cracked riser found in April is a small part, while the same riser left until July is a dead section of lawn plus the part.

North Georgia considerations

Spring is the natural time for an inspection in North Georgia, because winter damage here is specific and predictable. Deep freezes are not usually severe or long enough to break properly buried pipe, but they do crack exposed components: heads sitting above grade, risers, above-ground backflow assemblies and shallow valves. Those failures are invisible until the system is pressurised, which is exactly what a spring startup inspection does.

Clay soil makes the programming half of the inspection unusually valuable here. Piedmont clay infiltrates water slowly, so a long single run time produces runoff instead of deep moisture — and on the rolling terrain common across Hall, Forsyth and North Fulton counties, that runoff ends up on a driveway or in a street. Splitting run times into shorter soak cycles frequently fixes dry patches people had blamed on the heads.

Mature landscapes are the third local factor. Many of these neighbourhoods were built decades ago, and the trees have won. Canopy that did not exist when the system was designed now shades zones that were planned for full sun, and root growth has shifted heads out of alignment and abraded pipe and wire. An inspection is where that mismatch between the original design and the current landscape gets caught.

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.