5 Signs Your Sprinkler System Has a Leak
The frustrating thing about irrigation leaks is that the pipe is buried. A crack can run for months, quietly, while the only evidence is a water bill that crept up and a lawn that looks slightly off. Here is what to look for before it becomes a real number.
1. A water bill that climbed without a reason
The clearest signal, and the one people notice last because bills arrive monthly and creep gradually. If usage jumped and nothing changed — no new occupants, no filled pool, no new landscaping — an irrigation leak is a leading suspect, because it is the one system on the property that moves large volumes of water underground.
Quick test: shut the irrigation supply off entirely for a full billing cycle in a period when you are not watering. If usage drops back to normal, you have located the system at fault.
2. One patch that is greener and wetter than everything else
Grass directly over a leaking line gets watered constantly. It grows faster, greens up darker, and stays soft underfoot when the rest of the yard has dried. A stripe or a distinct patch that is thriving while its neighbors are ordinary is worth investigating.
Careful here, though: around the lagoons and lower-lying properties in Little Egg Harbor and similar areas, a permanently soggy patch is sometimes the water table rather than your irrigation. We will tell you which rather than selling you a repair you do not need.
3. Low pressure across a whole zone
If every head on one zone is weak while other zones are fine, water is escaping before it reaches them. A break upstream in that zone’s lateral line takes the path of least resistance and the heads get whatever is left.
Whole-system weakness points somewhere else — supply, main shutoff, backflow device, or on a well, the pump.
4. Erosion, sinking or a soft spot
Water moving underground carries soil with it. In sandy ground it moves a lot of soil. A depression forming in the lawn, a low spot along a walkway edge, or an area that gives underfoot can mean a line has been washing material away for a while.
5. The system runs when it should not
If you hear water moving with the controller off, or a zone weeps continuously, a valve is not sealing. That is not strictly a pipe leak but it wastes just as much water, and it runs twenty-four hours a day rather than only during a cycle.
What a leak actually costs
Two ways. The obvious one is the water. The less obvious one is the damage — saturated ground undermines walkways and patios, and constant moisture against a foundation is not something you want to leave running for a season.
Finding it
Run one zone at a time and walk it. Isolating which zone misbehaves narrows the search from an entire yard to one line, which is most of the work. Then look for the wet spot, the sunken spot, or the unusually happy grass.
What we would not recommend is digging speculatively. Guessing at where a line runs and opening the lawn to find out is how a modest repair becomes an expensive afternoon.
Get it looked at
Call (609) 971-9044 or request service. If you are already booking a fall blowout, mention the symptom — we can usually handle both in one visit rather than two.
