Emergency Sprinkler System Repair

Instructions for Shutting Off Your Sprinkler System to Isolate the Leak

We do offer Emergency After-Hours Sprinkler Repair. More information on those services below. However, it’s best if you can turn off the water going to your sprinkler system, which can usually help you avoid the need for an expensive after-hours emergency repair. Then once that’s isolated, if the leak stops, you can just contact us to schedule a regular Service Call during normal business hours. This will also avoid you having to turn off all of the house water, if you’re able to isolate and stop the leak. So here are some detailed instructions and images below regarding how to do that.

First, you’ll need to locate your isolation valve box or sprinkler system’s backflow device box. Every sprinkler system is different. Some have a separate box with an isolation valve in that box. In other systems the isolation valve is located inside the same valve box as the backflow device. And in other systems there wasn’t ever any isolation valve installed, so then we use one of the handles on the backflow device itself as an isolation valve.

An isolation valve can be a simple valve that can be turned by hand or sometimes it’s a valve deeper in the ground that requires an Irrigation Valve Key to turn it on and off. Those are readily available at Home Depot or most other hardware stores, if you need to get one. If you find an Irrigation Valve Key is needed but don’t have one, you can always turn off the water to the house at the water meter using a Water Meter Key, if you have one. Or sometimes you can use a wrench to turn off the water meter as well. Water Meter Keys are also readily available at Home Depot or other hardware stores. See images below

First you’ll want to locate your water meter. Because in most cases, the backflow device is located near the water meter. And if there is an isolation valve, that would also be located near the backflow device. If an isolation valve is installed, it’s generally in a small round valve box right next to the backflow device valve box or otherwise may be inside the backflow device valve box. Irrigation, backflow and isolation valve boxes are usually GREEN in color. Once you locate where your water meter is, if you cannot locate any green valve boxes nearby, your backflow device valve box and/or isolation valve box may be up near the foundation of the house in the front yard or even on the side of the house, usually near the foundation. Photos of each of these scenarios are shown in the image slider and video below.

It’s important to note that sometimes these valve boxes get covered up with barkdust, mulch, dirt, surrounding plants that have grown over that area, or river rock. So if you can’t find any green valve boxes, you can often locate them by taking a probing device (such as a long screwdriver) and poking the ground in the areas where you could normally expect to see such valve boxes (again, around the water meter area or near the house’s foundation in the front yard or side yard). When you discover a hidden valve box you’ll notice a thud sound and often hear the echo of a hollow box. Dig down and you’ll likely locate that box.

Once you locate the valve boxe(s) you can pry them open using a large flat screwdriver. To turn off the isolation valve or the handles (which act as isolation valves as well) on your backflow device, see the video below.

Emergency Repair Services, If You Can’t Get The Leak Stopped

We do offer emergency after-hours sprinkler system repair services, if you are unable to get your system shut off, still have a constant leak and would have to shut off your house water.

How to Reach Us After Hours: The best way to reach us after hours it to send a text message to our main phone line (503) 524-3679 with your name, address and description of the problem. Sending a few photos of the leak also helps. We have people monitoring our messages after hours in case emergencies arise and we can usually respond fairly quickly. There’s no guarantee we can mobilize a technician after hours. But most of the time when this happens we are usually able to find a technician who is available to come in. We have to pay them a lot more, as you would imagine, to do this. So we charge emergency rates for this service. The technician won’t necessarily fix the leak during that appointment. Our goal will be to just isolate the leak or get the water line leading to the break capped off, temporarily. Then we’ll often schedule a follow up service call during work hours to continue the repair and get everything back to working right again, so we can minimize the time our technician has to be away from their family after hours and minimize the cost to you. But also prevent you from having to turn off your house water.

After Hours Emergency Rates: Our rates for this are as follows:

• $350 Service Call (covers mobilization and first half-hour of work)
• $500 Service Call if there is snow/ice on the ground at the time.
• $100 per half-hour for any time spent after the first half-hour.
• $150 per half-hour for any time spent after the first half-hour if there is snow/ice on the ground.
• Plus our usual rates for any parts/materials used during the repair
• Payment is due at the end of the work session for that day.