Irrigation problems announce themselves in the grass long before you notice anything wrong with the equipment. Learning to read those signals tells you whether you're looking at a ten-minute fix or something buried.
Read the lawn first
Most sprinkler diagnosis starts with a pattern in the grass, not with the hardware.
A brown patch that comes back in the same place
This is a coverage problem, not a watering problem — and running the system longer won't fix it, it'll just overwater everything else. Heads get knocked out of alignment by mowers, sink into soft ground over the years, get blocked by shrubs that have grown in since installation, or the zone had gaps in it from day one. If the dry spot is in the same place every summer, look at head placement and spray arcs.
A whole zone that won't come on
Almost always electrical or valve-related rather than the heads. Usually a failed solenoid, a valve that won't open, or a broken wire. Worth testing methodically — swapping parts blindly gets expensive.
A zone that won't shut off
Typically debris caught in the valve or a failed diaphragm holding it open. This one wastes a lot of water fast, so shut the system off at the main until it's fixed.
A soggy spot that never dries
Underground leak. This is the one not to ignore — it runs on every cycle, quietly inflates your bill, and in our clay it can start undermining a walkway, slab edge, or driveway.
Heads misting instead of spraying
Pressure loss. Either there's a leak bleeding pressure off, or too many heads are sharing a zone for the available supply. Misting also wastes a large fraction of the water to evaporation and drift.
Worked in fall, dead in spring
Freeze damage. See below — this is more common here than people expect.
The clay problem
Irrigation systems in Southeast Texas develop leaks that identical systems in sandier regions don't, and the reason is the soil. Heavy clay swells when it's wet and shrinks when it's dry. That's not a subtle movement — it's enough to work buried PVC joints and fittings loose over a period of years.
It's why an older system here starts developing mystery leaks even though nothing hit it and nobody dug. The ground itself has been slowly flexing around the pipe since the day it went in.
Watering correctly here
Two rules, and the second one surprises people.
Established lawn: deep and infrequent. Roughly an inch of water per week total, split over two or three sessions, adjusted down when it rains. Deep watering pushes roots down. Short daily watering trains roots to stay at the surface, where they're defenseless the first time you miss a few days in August.
You probably need less than you think. Our humidity is high and our rainfall is real. Overwatering clay is genuinely damaging — saturated clay drives out soil oxygen, encourages fungal disease, and produces the same shallow-rooted, fragile turf as underwatering. More is not better here.
New seed is the exception. A newly hydroseeded lawn wants the opposite: light and frequent, keeping the seedbed consistently damp for the first two to three weeks. Then you transition to the deep-and-infrequent pattern as it establishes.
Watering and new lawns
Worth saying plainly: most hydroseeding failures we get called out to look at are watering failures, not seed failures. The application was fine. Somebody got busy during week two in July and the seedbed dried out for three days.
You can absolutely water a new lawn by hand if you're disciplined about it. But an irrigation system removes the human factor during the exact window where the human factor decides the outcome. And if you're putting in a system anyway, installing it before the seed goes down is meaningfully cheaper than trenching through a finished lawn later.
When to call someone
Reasonable to try yourself: replacing an obviously broken head, straightening a tilted one, adjusting a spray arc, cleaning a clogged nozzle, resetting the controller.
Worth calling on: anything requiring digging, valve and solenoid work, electrical faults, pressure problems, a zone layout that never covered properly, and any leak you can't pinpoint. Those are the ones where guessing costs more than asking.
Frequently asked questions
Why is part of my lawn brown when the sprinklers run every day?
Almost always a coverage gap rather than a watering shortage. A misaligned, sunken, or blocked head — or spacing that never overlapped properly. Running the system longer overwaters everything else without fixing the dry spot.
Can a freeze really damage a sprinkler system in Southeast Texas?
Yes, and it's common precisely because hard freezes are rare enough here that systems often aren't protected. Backflow preventers and above-ground piping hold standing water with nowhere to drain, and the damage usually isn't visible until spring.
How often should I run my sprinklers here?
For an established lawn, about an inch of water a week split across two or three deeper sessions, reduced when it rains. Our humidity means you often need less than you'd assume, and overwatering clay causes real problems.
Why does my system keep developing leaks?
Heavy clay swells wet and shrinks dry, and that movement works buried PVC joints loose over the years. It's why older systems here spring leaks with no obvious cause.
Sprinkler acting up?
Free estimates across Southeast Texas. Describe what the lawn is doing and we can usually narrow it down before we arrive.