COLORADO SPRINGS — With temperatures dropping, now is the time to winterize your sprinkler system before winter.
It’s recommended if you have sprinklers, you drain the system of all water. First, make sure you shut off the water supply completely and the valve on the backflow system is off. It’s also encouraged that you get a “blow out” service to get any remaining water out of your system. If you have an air compressor and know the ins and outs of your sprinkler, you can blow out the system yourself. I spoke with experts from Conserva Irrigation who say taking care of this now could prevent damage to your system.
“If things freeze, you’re going to get busted pipes, the backflow preventer and the valve manifold are probably the two most important things you want to protect because they are exposed to the air and cold temperatures, so you want to evacuate the water out of that,” said Jeff Young, Conserva Irrigation’s owner.
You don’t want your pipes or the backflow preventers to freeze over. Broken backflow preventers and cracked manifolds could cost between 400 and 600 dollars in repairs.
Another thing to be aware of, the sprinkler head could freeze over.
This doesn’t cost as much to fix but it could cause leaks. A leak in the sprinkler head could cost you between 5 and 20 gallons of water next year when you turn your system back on.
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