Watering your lawn or your home garden might be your ultimate wish. It’s the reason why you stumbled upon this post. Let’s learn why sprinkler heads must be adjusted and how to do it properly.
What you’ll learn here is the importance of adjusting sprinklers and the step-by-step process of getting the job done. The tips are according to experts, which means they are highly applicable.
Why Adjust Sprinkler Heads?
You love caring for your lawn and the plants that thrive within it, but you’ve got compelling reasons to not waste too much water on it. Water that sprouts from your sprinkler must be distributed evenly and for this reason, you must adjust the sprinkler head on your hose.
Another reason is that you need to make your plant watering activities as artful as possible. It would be truly satisfying to watch that stream of water flow from the sprinkler and down into the leaves of the plants, or onto the ground.
Can Sprinkler Heads be Adjusted?
Because the methods on how water is to be sprinkled vary from person to person, there are adjustable sprinklers out there to choose from. Sprinklers can be adjusted by turning some handy knobs that come along with the product. There are also those that can be adjusted using special tools that we will discuss a little later.
How Often Should You Adjust Sprinkler Heads?
Adjusting sprinkler heads depends on personal preference. But typically, adjusting them should just be done on a yearly basis. Depending on the brand of your sprinkler, there’s no need to actually adjust them regularly, like weekly or monthly.
But to get truly satisfied with your lawn sprinkling habits, you might need to adjust your sprinkler heads according to your own wishes.
Do You Need a Special Tool to Adjust Sprinkler Heads?
There is no need for a special tool for adjusting a sprinkler head, though you might need just a typical tool, like the slotted screwdriver, or the typical flat screwdriver. Other screwdrivers will also do the job if you just look at what kind of screw holds your sprinkles together.
Other tools to consider having when adjusting sprinklers are the hunter wrench and the head wrench. Some sprinkler brands come prepackaged with their own adjusting tools, especially those that have unique designs.
Main Types of Sprinkler Heads & How to Identify?
The most common types of sprinkler heads include the following. You can identify them by the kind of spray they give by simply looking at them.
- Spray Rotary Sprinkler Heads – can offer a no wind drift of spray which can save water as it has no high level of water runoff.
- Spray Irrigation Heads – can give a truly fine and fast, misty spray that can be blown away by the wind easily.
- Bubbler Irrigation Heads – it gives a lot of water at high speeds, which is ideal in small spaces around trees and shrubs.
- Drip or Soaker Systems – it has different sprinkler heads that must be installed in separate zones. Spray heads deliver water twice as much as other typical sprinklers.
How to Adjust Sprinkler Heads: (DIY – Step By Step)
The rotary sprinkler head is the most popular lawn sprinkler so to answer the question, let’s focus on the most typical sprinkler that most lawns are equipped with. Here are the steps to doing it properly.
Step 1
Adjusting the sprinkler efficiently means having it turned on. You should do so to get the job done. This is for making sure you’d see the actual adjustment.
Step 2
While the water is sprinkling, check if the direction of the water is aligned in the direction you want. If it’s not, you need to align it by turning the riser tube clockwise or counter-clockwise using your hand. You might hear a ratcheting noise, which is natural in making the proper adjustment.
Step 3
In adjusting the spray arc, you need to turn the edge of the nozzle and turn it clockwise to decrease the spread of the arc. To increase it, turn it counter-clockwise.
Step 4
In adjusting the radius of the water sprayed, you need to use a flathead screwdriver to turn the screw in the topmost middle part of the nozzle. In reducing the radius of how far the water could go, you must turn the screw clockwise. Doing the opposite would increase the radius.
Tips on How to Adjust Sprinkler Heads
Even though doing the 4 simple steps is enough to make your sprinkler fully operational, there are other things you need to remember. One is that the filter underneath the nozzle might get clogged with dirt or other forms of sediments which can truly affect your nozzle’s performance.
To clean the filter, you need to pull the tube riser up with one hand. Using your other hand, unthread the nozzle and pull out the filter. Clean the filter with plain water while shaking it as water runs through it. Using a brush might also help, so feel free to do it when necessary.
That’s how adjusting sprinkler heads is done. Just bear in mind that you don’t need to do it too often and you don’t need special tools to make it happen.
Here’s a tutorial video you might want to watch to understand this topic a bit further.
If you have some techniques of your own, feel free to share them in the comment section.