Max Moreno
Vice President of Water Conservation, Harvest Landscape Enterprises
You’ll want to check right before the start of the irrigation season, typically around the beginning of spring, and then in the fall when you’re about to winterize your system. Firstly, inspect it to make sure that the filter hasn’t been compromised at all and that it’s still working correctly.
Secondly, one of the things that I always tell my technicians to do is see what sediment the filter is collecting. Typically, if they see some kind of sediment that’s larger in size, like gravel, that tells us that there could be an issue within the water purveyor system. If I start to see large chunks of either gravel or concrete, that tells me that the water purveyor at some point may have had a mainline break within the system.
Larry Hall
Business Development Representative, Horizon Distributors
As far as the timing of maintenance, a couple of things come into play. One is your water source. In California, we have a lot of repurposed water and in many situations, the reclaimed or repurposed water has a lot of extra particulates in there that could clog your filter.
The finer the mesh, the more frequently you’re going to have to maintain and clean the filter and clean because it’s going to hold back more matter. There are different options on your screen filter material too usually it’s between nylon and stainless steel. When you do clean the filter, you’re going to rinse them inside out. But you don’t want a heavy stream on a high-pressure hose because you don’t want to tear it. A visual inspection would be after it’s clean to look around the surface areas and make sure there are no tears or bigger openings than the mesh size itself.
