LANDSCAPING SERVICES
REPEAT IRRIGATION FAULTS ARE TELLING YOU SOMETHING
“ When the same fault comes back a third time, stop fixing the fault and start asking what’ s causing it,” says Ed Harwood, Maintenance Contracts Manager at Waterscapes.“ Repeat faults are diagnostic information. A condition survey traces the cause, and it’ s nearly always cheaper than another season of repairs.”
For estates and facilities teams, the practical step is to log repeat faults rather than treating each callout as a one-off. Three visits to the same zone in a season is a pattern, and patterns are what a survey is designed to read. It also makes budget conversations easier, because the case for a repair or an upgrade arrives with evidence attached.
Waterscapes provides specialist irrigation and water feature maintenance, repair, refurbishment, and technical support including a full design facility, for commercial and public-facing environments across the UK.
Most commercial irrigation faults are easy enough to fix. The ones worth paying attention to are the faults that keep coming back. A valve that fails twice a season, dry patches that return weeks after a repair, or pressure that keeps sagging at the far end of a zone aren’ t bad luck. They’ re symptoms, and they usually point somewhere specific.
Low pressure at the furthest heads often traces back to a pipe or filter blockage. It can even be where sites get extended, and irrigation systems get stretched to cover new areas without the hydraulic design being revisited, resulting in poorer coverage and ultimately plant failure.
Repeat valve and solenoid failures tend to point to electrical issues or water quality rather than unlucky components. Dry patches that come back after every fix usually mean a coverage or design problem, not a maintenance one. Controllers that lose their programmes point to failed backup batteries or power supply faults that a replacement controller won’ t solve.
Seasonal performance drops are their own category. A system that copes in May and struggles in July isn’ t necessarily faulty. It may be running against a schedule set in spring, or against demand it was never sized for. The distinction matters, because one is a programming adjustment and the other is a design conversation.
Contact: maintenance @ waterscapes. co. uk www. waterscapes. co. uk
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