The last water
of the year.
Then the temperature drops.
Ice doesn’t ask
what it’s breaking.
Fall blowouts — booking now
Book the blowoutWater expands about 9%
when it freezes.
That is the whole problem. A sprinkler line only needs a little water left in it — a low spot, a valve body, a head that never quite drained. When it turns to ice it grows, and it has nowhere to grow into.
- Temperature
- 52 °F
- Residual water
- Liquid
- Volume change
- 0.0 %
- Wall stress
- Nominal
Drag the temperature down. The pipe in this model still has residual water in it — which is exactly what a blowout removes.
A split usually doesn’t announce itself in October. It waits under the turf until you turn the system on in spring, and then it shows up as a wet patch, a dead zone, or a water bill that doesn’t make sense.
Get it on the scheduleBook the blowout.
Tell us where the system is and roughly how big it is. We’ll come back with a time. If you’d rather just talk to somebody, the phone is faster.
Call or text 208-340-5514- Season Fall, before the first hard freeze — in most of Idaho that means October.
- On the day You don’t need to be home, as long as we can reach the backflow and the controller.
- Takes Most residential systems are done inside an hour.
What we actually do.
-
Fall sprinkler blowouts
In season now
BookCompressed air through the backflow, zone by zone, until every head runs dry. Controller set to rain mode on the way out. This is the one that saves you a repair bill in April.
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Irrigation
CallNew installs, repairs on somebody else’s install, head replacement, valve work, and the annual spring start-up. If a zone is doing something strange, this is the line item.
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Landscape design & build
CallBeds, sod, rock, plantings, and the grading that decides whether any of it survives. Designed around where the water actually goes, not around a drawing.
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Fertilization & turf health
CallFeeding, weed control, aeration, and overseeding on a schedule that matches the season rather than the calendar. Most thin lawns are a water problem before they’re a fertilizer problem.
Dry rings are a spacing problem.
Sprinkler heads throw the least water at the very edge of their reach, so good systems are designed head-to-head — each head throwing far enough to touch the next one. Pull them apart and the overlap disappears before the coverage does.
- Spacing
- 95 % of throw
- Overlap
- Head-to-head
- Uniformity DU(lq)
- 1.00
- Dry area
- 0.0 %
Drag the heads apart. The colour is precipitation rate — how much water actually lands. DU(lq) is what an irrigation auditor measures: the driest quarter of the lawn divided by the average. 1.00 would be perfectly even.
What a blowout actually is.
It is not complicated, and you should know what you’re paying for.
-
1.0
Water off, system drained
The main supply to the irrigation system is shut and the line is opened so gravity takes out whatever it can before the air goes on.
-
2.0
Compressor onto the backflow
Air goes in at the backflow assembly, at a pressure the pipe and the fittings are rated for. Too much pressure is how sprinkler systems get damaged during a blowout, so this is the part that matters.
-
3.0
Zone by zone until it runs dry
Each zone is opened in turn and held open until the heads stop throwing mist. Zones get a second pass, because the first one never gets it all.
-
4.0
Controller to rain mode
The timer is set so it doesn’t try to run a dry system in February, and your programme is left intact for spring.
Reasonable questions.
Can’t I just let it drain on its own?
Sometimes, if the system was built with perfect slope and manual drain valves in every low spot, and you open all of them. Most systems aren’t, and most people don’t. Gravity gets the easy water; the water that breaks pipes is the water sitting in the places gravity can’t reach.
When should I get on the schedule?
Before the first hard freeze, which across most of Idaho means some time in October. The exact date moves every year, and the schedule fills from the top down — earlier is simply easier to place.
It already froze once. Am I too late?
Not necessarily. One light overnight freeze often doesn’t reach the buried line — it’s the sustained cold that does the damage. Call, get it blown out, and if something did split we’ll find it then rather than in spring.
How long does it take, and do I need to be there?
Most residential systems are finished inside an hour. You don’t need to be home as long as we can get to the backflow and the controller — just tell us where they are and whether there’s a gate or a dog.
What does it cost?
It depends on the zone count and how the system is plumbed, so we quote it rather than guess at it. Call or send the form and you’ll get a real number, not a range.