Our New York Sprinkler Repair Team Answers Your Questions

Because we are an outdoor services company, our New York sprinkler repair team often gets questions about the many aspects of outdoor home improvement. We specialize in sprinklers and irrigation systems but also do masonry work, landscaping, snow removal and outdoor lighting. Here are the most common questions we get about our service.

Are sprinkler systems cost effective alternatives to watering by hand?

If your sprinkler system is well adjusted, it will deliver exactly the right amount of water to your lawn. This mean you won't over or under water so you'll have plush grass all the time. This will cut down on the need for expensive lawn care treatments to revive dead grass and your water bill. It will also prevent you from wasting hours of your time watering. Just the time saved (if it was billed out at minimum wage) would save you over $100 a week. So, in terms of cost – a sprinkler system effectively saves you both time and money.

My sprinkler system was fine last fall but when I turned it on this spring there was very poor water pressure and some of the heads failed to pop up. What could have caused this?

If you failed to have your system properly winterized or failed to have the system completely blown out, residual water may have frozen in the joints of your underground piping. This could cause cracks, breaks and leaks throughout the system. This allows water to escape into the ground and lowers the amount of water reaching the pop up heads. The majority of issues like this can be repaired with a few well placed repipes or an interior pipe coating treatment.

What is the difference between a hardscape and a landscape?

Our New York sprinkler repair team gets this question all the time. The truth is, a hardscape is part of the landscape. It is any portion of the landscape that is made of cement, brick, or other “hard” materials (some contractors consider it anything that isn't alive). These are usually seen in patios, porches, retaining walls, exterior planting bed supports and structural supports like gazebos and trellises.

What are the advantages of solar powered garden lighting? Are there any disadvantages?

Outdoor lighting is a great way to accentuate areas of your garden during the evening hours as well as a great way to illuminate pathways to create a safer yard. Solar powered garden lighting doesn't need to be hooked up to a hardwired power source, so it can be placed virtually anywhere. This frees you up to use it as up lighting for a single large specimen plant or an area of the garden a long distance from the main electrical source. The major disadvantage is that solar lights don't put out as many lumens as their hardwired counterparts. This means they don't illuminate as brightly and, depending on the amount of sunlight they receive during the day, they may run out of power before the end of the night.

What effect does driveway salt have on my flowering beds?

Depending on the type of ice melting salt you use you may see no effect at all on your flowers and lawn or you might see a patch of yellow and brown staring you down come springtime. Using a Magnesium chloride type salt will give you the best results with no damage to your concrete or vegetation. Sodium chloride based salts can cause severe burning of plants and should be used only in very strictly controlled run-off situations. Calcium chloride is environmentally friendly but prolonged use can pit your concrete surfaces. And for all intents and purposes, potassium chloride is ineffective in our area because it won't melt ice at below 15 degrees.