Repair service · Heads & rotors
Sprinkler head repair & replacement
Heads are the only part of your system the mower can reach — and the part your lawn shows off when they fail. We replace what's broken, raise what's sunken, match what was never matched, and set every head so the brown patches don't come back.
Most head calls finished in a single visit · You approve the flat price before any work begins
Texas Licensed Irrigator — LI0026061Required by Texas law for sprinkler repair. Ask any company for theirs.
Request sprinkler service
Describe the problem — we'll call back with an arrival window, usually same day.
Head & rotor services
Six fixes for a striped lawn
Almost every dry patch, geyser, and soaked sidewalk traces back to one of these — and most are finished the same visit.
Broken & mower-struck heads
Replaced with matched parts and set flush to grade — the detail that decides whether the new head survives. DIY steps in our head guide.
Sunken heads raised to grade
North Texas clay swallows heads over the years until spray dies in the grass blades. Excavated, raised, leveled.
Nozzle matching & arcs
Mismatched radii and arcs guarantee a wet/dry checkerboard. We re-nozzle zones to matched precipitation — Rain Bird specifics in our guide.
Geysers & blown risers
Water erupting beside a head means the fitting below let go — a line repair wearing a head costume. We fix the right one.
Heads misting, not spraying
Atomized spray is pressure too high, not heads gone bad. Pressure-regulated bodies or a regulator fix — paired with a controller check.
Zone-wide coverage rework
When spacing was never right, replacement alone can’t fix it. Head-to-head coverage restored, priced flat per zone.
We stock and match every major head line — Rain Bird 1800 sprays and 5000 rotors, Hunter PGP and Pro-Spray, Toro, K-Rain, Orbit — including the pressure-regulated and check-valve bodies that solve misting and low-head drainage for good.
Diagnosis guide
What your lawn is telling you
The turf writes the diagnosis before we arrive. Six patterns, six causes.
Brown circles or wedges in green turf
A clogged nozzle, a knocked arc, or a sunken head leaves its exact signature in the grass. The fix is usually minutes per head once it’s named.
A geyser when the zone starts
The nozzle blew off, the head decapitated, or the riser broke below it. If water erupts from soil beside the head, the fitting underneath is the real patient.
Spray hitting the street or sidewalk
A misdirected head isn’t just waste — Dallas requires misdirected heads to be repaired, and Frisco photographs and fines spray on pavement. Cheapest code compliance there is.
Heads misting like fog
Zone pressure too high, atomizing the water before it lands. Replacing heads changes nothing; pressure-regulated bodies fix it for good.
Heads that won’t pop up — or won’t go down
Grit in the wiper seal or a tired spring. Heads stuck up get harvested by the mower within the week; cheap to fix before that happens.
The lowest head floods after every run
Low-head drainage on a slope, not a broken head — fixed permanently with check-valve bodies at the low positions.
Flat-rate pricing
Flat-rate head repair pricing
Every repair is a flat rate quoted before work begins — never hourly, never a running meter while someone digs. The service call covers a full zone-by-zone diagnosis and applies to your repair, so diagnosis is effectively free when we do the work.
| Repair | Flat rate | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Service call & diagnosis | $[XX] | Every zone run, heads and coverage checked. Applied to your repair. |
| Head replacement | from $[XX] | Matched head and nozzle, set flush to grade, arc adjusted. |
| Sunken head raised to grade | from $[XX] | Excavated, riser extended, leveled and re-aimed. |
| Rotor replacement | from $[XX] | Gear-drive rotors matched and adjusted from the left edge, per the book. |
| Zone re-nozzle & coverage adjustment | flat, per zone | Matched-precipitation nozzles across the zone — the cure for checkerboard turf. |
Your flat rate depends on depth, access, and parts — but once quoted, it does not move. You approve the number before a shovel touches dirt. Full breakdown with examples on our sprinkler repair cost guide.
Local knowledge
Why heads fail here — machines above, clay below
Two forces kill North Texas sprinkler heads: the equipment that crosses the lawn weekly, and the soil that never stops moving underneath it.
Above grade — mowers, edgers, and tires
A head sitting even a half-inch proud loses its weekly fight with the mower, and heads beside driveways take edger strikes forever. The repair that lasts isn’t just a new head — it’s setting it dead flush to soil grade and, at the hardscape edges, mounting it on swing pipe so the next strike flexes instead of snapping. That’s the difference between our replacement and the one that’s back on the list next month.
Curb-strip and parkway heads in East Dallas and Richardson take the worst of it — street-side traffic plus city rules that make a head spraying pavement a violation, not a quirk.
Below grade — the slow swallow
Expansive Blackland clay swells and shrinks with every wet–dry cycle, and over a decade it pulls heads down until the pop-up can’t clear the turf. The spray dies in the grass blades, the lawn browns in arcs, and homeowners chase “water pressure problems” that are actually elevation problems. Raising sunken heads is the most underrated repair we do.
The same era logic applies here as everywhere: builder-grade heads installed by the thousand in Frisco and McKinney’s Stonebridge Ranch are aging in unison, while the retrofitted systems of older Plano run heads whose models died decades ago — all matchable, all fixable.
Coverage & compliance
Matched coverage — the fix behind the fix
Replacing a broken head treats the symptom. Matched nozzles and head-to-head spacing treat the lawn — and in several of our cities, working heads are the law.
Coverage rules — what matched means
| Principle | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Head-to-head spacing | Each head’s spray reaches its neighbors — that overlap is the design, not waste |
| Matched precipitation | Every nozzle on a zone lays down water at the same rate, or you get checkerboard turf |
| Never mix sprays and rotors | They precipitate at wildly different rates — a mixed zone puddles and parches at once |
| Pressure-regulated bodies | Stop misting, cut water use, and make every nozzle perform to its chart |
This is why “just swap the head” sometimes can’t fix a brown lawn — if the spacing or nozzling was wrong from the builder, we’ll say so and price the real fix flat, per zone. Budget ranges on the sprinkler repair cost guide.
Where heads meet the ordinance
Dallas requires broken, missing, or misdirected heads to be repaired — full stop. Frisco enforces year-round, with photos, against heads spraying streets and sidewalks and against unrepaired breaks, with fines from $100. Richardson prohibits operating a poorly maintained system outright. In this territory, head repair is the cheapest compliance money on the property.
Every visit ends with heads set to grade, arcs pulled off the pavement, and the controller checked against your city’s watering days. A full sprinkler inspection documents all of it in one pass.
Your specialist
Meet Jonathan, your irrigation specialist
Eldorado isn't a call center dispatching whoever's available — when you call, you're talking to the licensed irrigator who shows up. Jonathan has been setting North Texas heads to grade since 2013, holds Texas irrigator license LI0026061, and works out of east Plano with the major head lines stocked on the truck.
His rule on every job is the one customers keep repeating in reviews: fix only what's broken. You get a zone-by-zone diagnosis, a flat price before work starts, and an honest answer when something doesn't need replacing.
The visit
How a repair visit works
No mystery invoices. The price is on the table before a shovel touches dirt.
Call & describe
Tell us what the lawn is doing — brown patches, a geyser, spray on the sidewalk. Most head calls are finished the same visit.
Zone-by-zone diagnosis
We run every zone and read the coverage — because five broken heads on one zone usually means one underlying cause, not five coincidences.
Flat quote, your call
You get the exact price before any work begins. The service call fee is applied to the repair.
Repair & prove it
We fix it, run the zone with you watching, and aim every arc where it belongs — on turf, not pavement.
Field record
Recent head & rotor work
Real jobs, our own photos — valve boxes, manifolds, trench lines, and the lawns after.
Reviews
What our customers say
"Many charge outrageous fees and try and upsell. Eldorado doesn't do that. Pleasant, responsive and most importantly, honest... 5 star and will be my go-to sprinkler guys."
"Came out same day and took care of business at an unbelievable price. Took about 30 minutes to diagnose and repair. Would absolutely utilize again."
"They gave me options and fixed only what needed to be fixed. They are honest good people that do good work."
Questions
Head repair, asked & answered
How much does sprinkler head replacement cost?
Head replacement starts at $[XX] including a matched head and nozzle, set flush to grade with the arc adjusted. Rotors and raised sunken heads run from $[XX]; a full zone re-nozzle is priced flat per zone. The $[XX] service call covers a whole-system diagnosis and is applied to your repair. Full breakdown on our sprinkler repair cost guide.
Can you match a head from a different brand?
Yes — bodies interchange across brands more than people expect (most use the same half-inch inlet), and what really has to match is the nozzle performance across the zone. We carry Rain Bird, Hunter, and Toro lines on the truck and match precipitation rates, not just logos.
Why does the same head keep breaking?
Because the cause is still there: a head proud of grade meets the mower weekly, a head at the driveway edge meets the edger, and a head on a rigid riser snaps where a swing-pipe head would flex. We fix the placement and mounting, not just the plastic — that's why our replacements stay replaced.
My heads barely pop up anymore — low water pressure?
Usually low elevation, not low pressure: clay soil swallows heads over the years until the pop-up can't clear the turf. If a whole zone is genuinely weak, that's different — often an underground leak or a half-closed valve, which is a diagnosis we run before replacing anything. See sprinkler leak detection & repair.
What does it mean when heads mist instead of spray?
Zone pressure is too high and it's atomizing the water — half of it drifts away before landing. New standard heads change nothing; pressure-regulated bodies or a zone regulator fix it permanently and usually cut the water bill in the process.
A head is spraying the street — is that actually a problem?
In this territory, yes, legally: Dallas requires misdirected heads to be repaired, and Frisco photographs and fines spray on pavement year-round, starting at $100. It's also the easiest violation to fix — an arc adjustment or a head set to grade, minutes per head.
Why is there a brown stripe or checkerboard in my lawn?
Coverage, not water volume: mismatched nozzles, wrong spacing, or sprays and rotors mixed on one zone lay water down unevenly no matter how long you run it. The fix is re-nozzling the zone to matched precipitation — flat-priced, and it's the cure homeowners are usually missing after years of head swaps.
The lowest head on my slope floods every morning — broken?
Probably not — that's low-head drainage: the zone's pipes empty through the lowest head after every run. Check-valve head bodies at the low positions stop it permanently. It's a five-minute diagnosis we'd rather make than sell you a head you don't need.
Does head repair in Texas require a licensed irrigator?
For paid work, yes — Texas law requires a TCEQ irrigator or technician license for anyone repairing irrigation for compensation. Eldorado is owned and operated by a Texas Licensed Irrigator, LI0026061. DIY on your own lawn is completely legal, and we publish our methods.
Can I replace a sprinkler head myself?
It's the most DIY-friendly repair on the system, and our guide walks the exact sequence — including the grade-setting and flushing steps that decide whether the new head lasts. Where it stops being DIY: repeated failures at the same spot, zone-wide weakness, or a riser snapped off inside the fitting. See our DIY sprinkler head repair guide.
How many heads can you replace in one visit?
As many as the property needs — a zone's worth is routine, and a full re-nozzle of several zones is a normal half-day. Batching them into one visit is exactly how the per-head economics get better for you, and we'll say so in the quote.
Do you repair rotors or only spray heads?
Both. Gear-drive rotors (Rain Bird 5000, Hunter PGP and the rest) usually take a drop-in internal assembly rather than digging out the body, and every rotor we touch gets its arc set properly from the fixed left edge — the step that makes adjustment stick.
Do you offer same-day head repair?
Same-day or next-day for most calls, and most head work is finished the visit we arrive. Call (469) 970-2715 and describe what the lawn is doing; we'll give you an honest arrival window.
What areas do you cover for head repair?
Everything within about 30 minutes of our east Plano shop: Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Richardson, Dallas, and North Dallas.
Service area
Head repair available across North DFW
Licensed repair within about 30 minutes of our east Plano shop:
Searching “sprinkler head replacement near me”? Our east Plano shop puts a licensed irrigator — with Rain Bird, Hunter, and Toro heads already on the truck — within about 30 minutes of all of Collin County and North Dallas.
Head symptoms with deeper causes? See sprinkler leak detection & repair for pressure problems, or do it yourself with our DIY head repair guide and Rain Bird guide.
Brown patches spreading?
Most head repairs are finished the day we arrive — call before the schedule fills.