Sprinklers in the outdoors are designed to make watering your lawn and taking care of your yard easier. Instead of having to water everything yourself, you can just let the sprinklers do all the work without having to bat an eye. However, if your sprinkler system is making your life harder by causing water damage to your home, then it can quickly become a nightmare, especially if the weather plays a role.

However, there are a few tricks you can do to make sure that your sprinkler system won’t damage your home or your pipelines, and that’s what this article is going to cover.

Make Sure Your Yard Is Watered, Not Your Home

Whether you are in an area stricken by drought and need to make every sprinkler drop count, you want to conserve water, or you just want to make your sprinkler system the most efficient on the block, you don’t want the sprinklers coating your home with water whenever you turn them on.

Aside from making your home look ugly with the staining, the constant spraying of water can cause a lot of problems for the foundation and structure of your house. The water can stain, damage the siding or brick facade of the home, and can even cause the growth of mold and mildew in and on the walls. The constant formation of puddles at the base of the home from the water can also lead to foundation problems.

Correcting the direction of the sprinkler heads to make sure they are pointed away from your home is a good start, or you can change the head to have it spray a different pattern. If the arc of your current sprinkler head is hitting the house, for instance, you might need to change the sprinkler head to have it be a bit lower. You can also get a different pattern as well so your lawn continues to be covered, but not the house at all.

Make Sure Not To Have A Freeze Break

If you live in an area where the weather changes from hot to cold with the seasons, then that weather can affect your pipes. The water inside the pipes can freeze and when it freezes it expands, then when it melts it contracts. A constant cycle of the water inside the pipes of your sprinkler system freezing and melting can lead to cracks in the pipe which can eventually lead to the pipes leaking and then breaking altogether.

A broken pipe can lead to a lot of water getting inside the home and pooling around the home, which causes a lot of damage to the structure of your house. Even a few inches of water that you can see can soak into the foundation and weaken the house’s structure. In order to prevent a freeze break from occurring, you need to maintain the pipes and also ensure that you have the proper shut off systems in place.

If a freeze break does occur, in addition to calling plumbing services to repair the break, you will also need to call upon a water damage restoration company to fix any damage that the leaking or burst pipe might have caused to your yard and home as well.

Make Sure To Check The Schedule Of The Sprinklers

While we all like to have an attitude of ‘set it and forget it’ whenever we set up an automated sprinkler system, that’s the wrong attitude to have. Because forgetting about the sprinklers often leads to big problems if the schedule needs to change but we don’t change it. For example, watering for too long or watering multiple times a week can cause issues with oversaturation.

A lawn that is too wet from constant watering won’t be able to absorb the water, and then the water can rise and weaken the foundation of your home. If you have a basement in your house, then the excess water can flow into that area as well and cause some issues. The basement is also another area where mold and mildew can grow in the dark, so it should always be inspected for growth so you don’t need to go through the process of mold removal.

Ensuring that you keep an eye on the sprinkler system every few months and check that the schedule it is on still meets your needs is a good idea, and a good way to make sure your lawn can handle the water you are pouring on it.

Install A Rain and Freeze Sensor

Another way to make sure that your automated sprinkler system isn’t covering the yard in water is to install a rain and freeze sensor. This sensor is able to detect rainfall and freezing temperatures, and it will communicate this to your sprinkler system. If it rains or is too cold, then the sprinkler system will shut off and won’t waste any water.

This doesn’t just save you water and money, but it can also prevent extra wear and tear on your pipes during a freeze, and will prevent the sprinklers from adding more water to your lawn on top of all the rainfall. Finally, it’s also one less thing for you to worry about if you set an automated sprinkler schedule.

Keeping Your Sprinklers From Causing Water Damage

No one thinks that their sprinkler system can cause a lot of damage to their yard and their home, until it actually happens and the water damage costs a pretty penny to fix. Making sure that you are taking the proper precautions and keeping the sprinklers from spraying your home can be a way to keep your house safe.

Once you’ve checked off all of these boxes, you can be sure that the sprinkler system isn’t going to be causing any problems for your house.  If water damage does come into your home, then at least you know it’s coming from inside the house and not your sprinkler system!