Of all of the Dallas area water restrictions, the Plano water restrictions win the prize for most creative. Your Plano lawn is allowed 8 hours in the morning on one day and 4 hours in the evening on another which makes setting your controller very confusing. As always, in 100 plus degree weather you want to water 60 minutes per zone for spray heads and 120 minutes for rotary heads (the ones that slowly turn).
For your Plano sprinkler systems you will need to set a program A and a program B. If your days to water are Monday morning and Thursday evening, you will want to set your sprinkler controller on program A to water Monday morning at 2am, 3am and 4am with run times of 10 minutes each (double that for rotors) and program B for Thursday evening at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm. What if your sprinklers start at 2am and aren’t done by 3am? Most controllers will “stack” the start times and wait until the first round is done before starting the next one.
VERY IMPORTANT: Be sure to total up the minutes you have set and make sure you haven’t gone past what the Plano water restrictions allow for each day. The last time Plano had water restrictions they enforced them very strictly.
Sprinkler controllers for larger properties are very complicated to set and it’s not unusual for us to be required to set them for less than what the lawn really needs. Also, some of the older or less expensive controllers cannot be set following these recommendations. If so, it might be time to consider replacing your controller.
If you need help setting your controller, don’t hesitate to call us and don’t forget we’re offering $25 off of our first hour of sprinkler repair (cannot be used with other coupons).