US $10.00
If you have invested money in a lawn sprinkler timer system, you are going to want to make sure that you take care of it at all times. Many people will make the mistake of thinking that since it works with water, that it will always be clean and maintenance free. That is not necessarily the case and you should perform some limited maintenance on it to ensure top performance.
The biggest area of concern for your water sprinkler timers is going to the actual sprinkler head on the watering system. If this is not kept clean, debris can build up and restrict the water flow of the unit. This is something that you must avoid as the lawn sprinkler timer system will think that your lawn is receiving the right amount of water, but that will not be the case.
One of the first things that you will want to do is set up a schedule for yourself to ensure that you are checking it regularly to make sure that everything is working fine. In most cases, 3 to 4 times a year will be more than enough with an occasional spot check every now and again just to be sure. The recommended times for checking your system would be before the season starts, about halfway through the season and then again at season’s end before putting everything away again.
To make sure that you clean your sprinkler heads properly, you are going to need to get a few things together for the task. You should have most of the supplies on hand already, but if you don’t, a quick trip to the local hardware store will get you everything that you need. The items that you will need to gather are a bucket, detergent, firm wire (a small piece of a hanger should do the trick), wire brush and a screwdriver. Now that you have everything, it is time to get to work cleaning out the sprinkle head.
The first thing to do is remove the sprinkler head. You will either be able to lift this directly off of the system or if it is screwed on, you will obviously have to remove the screws first. Once you have the head off, you can soak it in hot soapy water why you are taking care of the other items. Get your piece of wire and remove any large pieces of dirt and debris that have gotten into the sheath of the equipment.
Once you have done that, you can use the wire brush to scrub down both the sheath and the sprinkler head to make sure all small pieces of debris have been removed. You will once again check all of the holes in the equipment to see if they are clogged and can again use the wire to unclog them.
After you have done all of that, it is time to reverse the process and put everything back together again. If you have multiple heads, you will need to repeat the process until all of them are clean. When you have the whole unit done, you can hook up the water and make sure that it is running correctly. If they are any blockages, just strip the unit back down and clean them out.
