Is it possible to do the dewinterization of the sprinkler by yourself, or you have to hire the professional?

Question

Is it possible to do the dewinterization of the sprinkler by yourself, or you have to hire the professional?

Answer 1

It is a DIY project

Really the only thing that should have been done in the early winter is removing the back flow prevent-er and covering the 2 exposed openings. The back flow is usually the piece that attaches the incoming water from the city or well to the main  irrigation line. Simply reconnect the back flow noting the arrow on it for flow direction and hand tighten the nuts that attach it to the pipes coming out of the ground. Make sure you reinstall the 2 rubber O rings correctly or it'll leak.

Turn the system back on reset the time if the memory was lost and run the zones. You'll hear a bunch of noise at start up until all zones have run and pushed the air in the lines out.

Set all zones to ~ 3 minutes.. this gives you enough time to monitor all heads for proper function. make needed repairs.

That's it

Answer 2

Spring start up procedures.

This is just as important as winterization, but nobody ever asks me about it! When you first turn on your sprinkler or drip system in spring you should always flush it out. During the winter many small critters take up residence in your sprinklers, emitters, tubes, and pipes. Often they manage to squeeze in, only to be unable to get back out when spring comes. Whether they crawl down to a smaller pipe and get wedged, or grow, or whatever, I don't know. But I do know they get in there and they get stuck! So you need to get them out. To do that open the ends of drip tubes and flush 'em out by turning on the water. For sprinklers remove the nozzles from, at the least, the last head on each pipe (better yet, remove them all) and run the water. When you think the water has run long enough, you're only half way done. Let it run twice that long! The biggest mistake in flushing is not letting the water run long enough. When done, make sure that standing water doesn't drain back into the pipes, taking dirt back in with it! You may need to put a temporary piece of hose or pipe onto the flush outlet to drain the water to a different area. Make sure the hose is as big or bigger than the pipe, you don't want to restrict the flow!

After flushing, check the system out by running it. Look for clogged emitters or nozzles. I don't recommend cleaning plastic sprinkler nozzles, replace them with new ones. Cleaning them leaves small scratches which mess up the spray pattern and create dry spots. (So that's why you have more and more dry spots each year! Who would have known! And you thought using that screwdriver to pry out the sand grains was a brilliant idea!) Calcium buildup on sprinkler nozzles can be removed using one of the many calcium remover products available for kitchen use. I've never tried it but I've been told that soaking them in drain clog remover also works. If you try it let me know if it works!

Check for leaking valves. Often the flexible seals dry out over the winter and leak when the water is turned back on. This is also a good time to think about giving your plants some fertilizer. They just woke up from a long nap and they're HUNGRY! Did you miss Little Shop of Horrors? Feed them, but not too much!

Check the controller for proper run times for each station. If it has a back-up battery replace it with a fresh one. Almost all solid state controllers use ALKALINE back-up batteries and will not work right with other kinds- if in doubt use an alkaline type battery. The battery on some controllers is located behind a face plate where you can't see it (why do the manufacturers do stupid things like that?), so if you don't see a battery, remove the wiring compartment cover and look for it in there. A few of the high-end controllers have built in battery chargers (look at the batteries, they should be labeled "rechargeable" if the clock has a built in charger). Most newer controllers now come with non-volatile program memory and long-lasting batteries to keep the clock running during a power outage. These batteries are like the ones in your computer, they last for years, you may never need to change them.

Answer 3

yes    just reverse the steps taken to winterize your system