What is the Difference Between Drip Irrigation and Traditional Sprinklers?

Why is Irrigation Important?

​Irrigation systems keep your landscaping hydrated automatically to save you the brainpower of remembering to do it yourself during a hot month. It helps your plants to maintain their health by applying the correct amount of water at the correct time. If you have too much water, then your yard will be bogged down, your plant’s roots rot, and fungi start to proliferate. If you have too little water, then everything starts to die. A good irrigation system will filter out some of the harsh chemicals that you can find in your soil, such as salts, toxins, or excess minerals. Dead grass, muddy shoes, and dried-out landscape are some of the things that I personally hate seeing when trying to enter my home after a long day. A correctly designed irrigation system will alleviate some of these issues. Also, an irrigation system saves me the trouble of having to do all the work myself.

Drip Irrigation 

Drip irrigation is more costly, but it uses less water. Drip irrigation directly deposits the water into your landscape, garden, or flower beds. Since it directly deposits, there will not be as much excess water to flood your yard and to allow your mulch, fertilizer, or soil to float away. Drip irrigation might also be better if your yard retains a lot of water. 
Reoccurring problems that come with drip irrigation are clogged pipes, clogged emitters, and algae build-up. Also in the warmer seasons, the pipes might break beacause of the amount of heat. Clogged pipes can be fixed by running the irrigation system for about an hour after putting in a solution. This will help break down anything blocking the pipes. You can clean the emitters with wire or soaking them in vinegar. If there is an algae build-up then you can fix it with chlorine. 

Traditional Irrigation 

Traditional irrigation is less costly to install, but it uses more water than drip irrigation does to hydrate your landscape. To some people it is also more pleasing to look at than drip irrigation.
​Common traditional sprinkler problems include broken heads, pipes, and timer boxes. To fix a broken pipe all you need to do is find the leak, take our the broken pipe, and then put a coupling pipe in the place of the absent pipe. You could just replace a sprinkler head if it is broken. Lastly, to fix a timer box is broken make sure that the fuses are okay. You can replace the fuses but you could also replace the timer box itself. 

Irrigation Timing 

A great time for your irrigation system to run is in the morning. After running in the morning, the excess water will be evaporated throughout the day. If the excess water is gone than you will not have to worry about over watering your yard. If you overwater your yard you will also encounter problems such as fungus or dead grass. 

Irrigation is a wonderful invention that is used to help water your landscape whenever you need it. With a properly irrigated landscape you will have a wonderful yard and wonderful area for activities.