As the colder months of the year approach, we begin to make the various adjustments to our home to ‘winterize’ and prepare for the onslaught of white powder that makes for great skiing and terrible driving.

The creeping chill of the winter cold is slowly approaching, but there are things you can do to make sure your home is ready when it gets here.

Some of these things are simpler than others. Depending on your yard, you may need to do a bit of upkeep for your bushes, shrubs, and trees.  You may want to close shutters that you kept open to let the sun in.  If your home has an actual and functional fireplace, this is a good time to look into finding someone to clean it and ensuring the chimney is in good working order. If you have an outdoor pool that doesn’t heat itself, it may be time to drain it and cover it for the winter.

Something else important to do is to winterize your sprinkler system.  Sprinkler systems are extremely useful during the summer months and even the spring, but when fall comes around, they don’t see much use.

Why Do I Need To Winterize?

winterize-sprinkler When your sprinkler is not in use, most of them have water resting in the pipes and lines.  In the warmer months of the year, this isn’t a problem; even if you have an uncharacteristic freezing-cold day, that doesn’t mean it will freeze the ground. 

But when the weather moves into the constantly freezing-cold temperatures, that means that your sprinkler lines will freeze.

If there is water sitting in the lines, that means that the water expands as it turns to ice, and eventually that means that the water may rupture the line.  This causes immense damage to the lines, rupturing them.  It can also cause damage to parts of the sprinkler head that may have water in them that isn’t moving and have nowhere to vent that water to.

How Much Will Repairs Cost Me?

The cost of repairing your sprinkler system due to failure to winterize can vary wildly.  A few factors that will go into determining the cost include:

  • Extent of the damage
  • Size of your system
  • Materials included in your system
  • How deep in the ground your system is

In general, the cost of repairs can easily get into the thousands of dollars.  It is far cheaper to instead invest in professional help from a local Colorado sprinkler winterizing company or service, rather than risk damage later on.

Do you need to winterize? If you live in Colorado, you most certainly do. If you’re reading this from outside of Colorado, if you live anywhere that actually experiences winter weather and below-freezing temperatures, it’s in your best interest to winterize your sprinkler system, too.  Hiring a local service to winterize your sprinkler system is a much better choice than paying for repairs in the future, and your budget will thank you for your foresight.