From the truck · DIY guides
Sprinkler repair guides
These are the same diagnostic sequences I run on paid calls, written out in full — including the manual tests, the meter readings, and the points where a repair goes from weekend job to professional job. Publishing them costs us a few easy service calls and earns something better: customers who know exactly what they're paying for when they do call.
One legal note before you start: Texas requires anyone repairing an irrigation system for compensation to hold a TCEQ irrigator license. Working on your own home is completely legal; the unlicensed handyman charging your neighbor cash is not.
How to repair a sprinkler valve
Stuck-open zones, dead zones, diaphragm rebuilds, and solenoid swaps — plus the manual test that tells you in ten seconds whether your problem is mechanical or electrical.
How to repair a sprinkler head
Replace a broken head, set it to grade, match the nozzle — and diagnose why the same head keeps dying so the new one survives the mower.
How to adjust sprinkler heads
Set the arc and radius on spray heads and rotors, the right way — left edge first — and the honest reason adjustment sometimes can’t fix a brown lawn.
How to repair a Rain Bird sprinkler head
Brand-specific fixes for the 1800 sprays and 5000 rotors in most North Texas lawns: wiper seals, arc adjustment from the left edge, and drop-in internal assemblies.
How to repair a broken sprinkler line
Find the break without prospecting, cut it out square, and splice it with a telescoping coupling — plus why Blackland clay keeps shearing your fittings.
How to find a broken sprinkler wire
The ohm-map method: test every zone from the controller, check the splice boxes first, and make the repair permanent with the right connectors.
How to turn off a sprinkler system
Pause watering at the controller, or kill the water at the isolation valve when a zone is stuck on — the emergency shutoff everyone gets wrong under pressure.
Low sprinkler water pressure: causes & fixes
One zone weak or all of them? The split that halves the diagnosis, the free checks first, and when it’s a leak, a stuck valve, or an overloaded zone.
Why is my water bill so high?
The meter test that tells you leak-vs-schedule in two minutes, and the sprinkler causes that quietly double a bill on North Texas clay.
How to winterize a sprinkler system
North Texas doesn’t need a full blowout — it needs the backflow protected. The steps that prevent the February freeze-split repair everyone else is calling about.
Zoysia vs. Bermuda vs. St. Augustine
The honest North Texas grass comparison by sun, shade, water, traffic, and freeze tolerance — and what the 2021 freeze changed about which to plant.
When DIY isn't the day
Every guide above ends at the same honest fork: some repairs are an hour with hand tools, and some are a flat-rate visit from the licensed irrigator who does this daily. If the manifold is brittle, the leak won't surface, the wire map says “open” everywhere, or Saturday has better uses — that's sprinkler valve repair, sprinkler head repair, leak detection & repair, and wiring & controller repair, quoted before any work begins. Budget numbers live on the sprinkler repair cost guide.
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