Where is the drain valve?
Your team installed irrigation for a dozen clients over the last few years: drip lines in raised beds, pop-up sprinklers on lawns, a couple of rooftop terraces with planters. Each spring they need starting up and checking, and before the first hard frost they need draining down. The installer who fitted most of them has left.
A technician arrives for a shutdown and cannot find the drain valve. Another client's controller has been set to run at midday since a power cut in July. One system was not shut down at all last year because nobody booked it, and a split pipe was found in March.
Why irrigation work gets forgotten
Irrigation is a small, seasonal part of most landscaping businesses, so it lacks the systems your maintenance rounds have. The detail of each installation, such as zones, valves, controller programmes and pipe runs, is rarely recorded properly at handover.
- As-installed layouts are sketches, or not kept.
- Controller settings are not recorded, so they cannot be restored.
- Spring start-ups and autumn shutdowns are booked by memory.
- Faults found at a visit are not turned into repair quotes.
- Clients do not know who to call, so they sometimes call someone else.
What it costs when it slips
A missed shutdown can lead to frost damage, which is an unhappy conversation with the client about who pays. Time on site is wasted hunting for valves. Faults noticed but not quoted are lost income. And a client who has to chase you for a start-up in a dry May is likely to look for another contractor for the whole garden.
There is a less obvious cost in the handover itself. When a system is installed, the client is usually shown the controller once and left with a manual. Months later, when a zone stops watering, they ring you with a vague description, and the technician who visits has no record of what was installed or how it was set. Every irrigation call-out then starts with twenty minutes of detective work that the client, reasonably, does not expect to pay for.
The irrigation register we build
- Each system is recorded with a layout plan, photos of the controller, valve boxes and drain points, zone list with what each zone waters, and the controller programme.
- Seasonal visits are scheduled automatically, with clients offered a slot and reminded, and visits slot into your maintenance crews' routes.
- The technician's phone shows the system details and a checklist per zone: runs, leaks, heads, emitters, pressure, controller settings, drain-down for winter.
- Faults and parts needed are recorded with photos and turned into a repair quote for the owner to approve and send.
- Controller programmes changed at a visit are saved, so they can be restored after a power cut or a reset.
- Clients get a short visit report, and systems overdue for a visit are flagged.
| Visit | What the checklist covers |
|---|---|
| Spring start-up | Recharge, check each zone, heads and emitters, set programme |
| Mid-season check | Leaks, coverage, programme for the weather |
| Autumn shutdown | Isolate, drain or blow out as your method requires, record |
| Repair visit | Fault, parts used, test |
A small service line that runs itself
Start-ups and shutdowns happen on time because they are scheduled, not remembered. Any technician can find their way round a system they did not install. Repairs found on visits become quotes. Irrigation becomes a steady, recurring part of the business rather than a source of awkward calls.
It also changes how you sell irrigation in the first place. When you can show a new client that their system will be recorded properly, started and shut down on schedule, and serviced by anyone on your team, the installation becomes the start of a recurring relationship rather than a one-off job that fades from memory.
Are your irrigation clients at risk?
- Nobody has a full list of the systems you installed.
- Technicians hunt for valves and drain points.
- A system has been damaged after a missed shutdown.
- Controller settings are lost after power cuts.
- Faults found on visits are not quoted.