Sprinkler Repair FAQ: The Villages and Surrounding Towns

The service call is $75 to $150 and covers travel plus diagnosis. Most repairs finish the same visit: heads run $15 to $50 each installed, valve repair $150 to $350, controller repair $100 to $250. Full ranges are on the pricing page.

Travel to your property, running every zone (not just the one you flagged), checking the valve box, and testing the controller and rain sensor. After that you get a written repair quote and approve it before anything else happens.

The two most common causes: a rain sensor stuck in the wet position, which silently cuts power to every zone even on a dry week, and a dead controller backup battery after a power blip, which can reset the whole program to blank. Both are inexpensive fixes once found, usually inside the service call plus a small part.

It is worth calling same-day. A stuck-open valve wastes a lot of water fast and, on a non-potable system, can also flood a low spot in the yard. Shutting off the zone valve or the whole system at the backflow preventer, if you can find and reach it safely, buys time until a tech arrives.

A valve that will not fully seat is letting water leak past the diaphragm even when the zone is technically off. It usually shows as a valve box that stays full of water between cycles, sometimes with a faint hiss at the head closest to that valve. It is a repair, not something to leave, since it wastes water around the clock.

That is the classic sign of an underground line break or a valve stuck slightly open, neither of which shows up as a puddle right away. A full system inspection checks pressure and run time zone by zone, which usually finds it faster than walking the yard looking for wet grass.

Yes. Florida Statute 373.62 requires every automatic landscape irrigation system in the state to have a working rain sensor or equivalent shutoff device, and requires any licensed contractor doing work on your system to test it and fix or replace it before finishing anything else. It applies to systems already installed, not just new ones.

That's the standard schedule, but it is currently suspended: as of September 24, 2026 a Modified Phase III water-shortage order (Southwest Florida Water Management District, extended September 22, 2026 through March 31, 2027) limits Sumter County and the Marion County part of The Villages to one day a week by the last digit of your address, and St. Johns River Water Management District runs its own separate one-day-a-week order for the rest of Lake County. When restrictions lift, the standard schedule is: Districts 1 through 4 and the unincorporated Lady Lake/Lake County area water based on whether your address ends in an odd or even number; Districts 5 through 14 water based on lot number; hours before 10am or after 4pm either way. Check districtgov.org for your exact current schedule, since it shifts with daylight saving time and with whichever shortage order is active.

Sumter County (Wildwood, Oxford, and most of The Villages) and the Marion County portion of The Villages fall under the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD). Most of Lake County (Lady Lake, Leesburg, Fruitland Park, and part of The Villages) falls under the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD), though SWFWMD's current shortage order also reaches into part of Lake County. Summerfield is Marion County but outside The Villages' own utility system, so it isn't covered by the same mapping; check your utility bill or the county for which district applies there.

Not necessarily. A meaningful share of Villages homes, mainly south of CR 466 and in Districts 5 through 14, irrigate on a separate non-potable system fed by stormwater retention and groundwater rather than the potable supply. Check your utility bill (VCSA, LSSA, NSU/VWCA, CSU/SWCA, SSU, or GPU) if you are not sure which one feeds your yard.

It tends to carry more sediment than treated drinking water, so nozzle clogging and filter-screen buildup happen a bit faster on that supply. It is a maintenance factor, not a defect, and worth mentioning to the tech if you know you are on it.

No, and that's an easy mistake. Your lawn still needs water while you're gone. The real risk is the opposite: a stuck-open valve or a failed rain sensor running unattended for weeks, which shows up as a large water bill after you're already back. Book an inspection before you leave instead: every zone run, the valve box checked, the rain sensor tested, and the controller's backup battery checked.

Yes, and it's a genuinely common cause here. Florida leads the country in lightning strike density, and Central Florida sits right in the thick of it. A power surge from a nearby strike can fry a controller's transformer, a solenoid, or both at once, which often looks like a total system failure rather than a wiring problem.

No. We repair what is already installed: heads, valves, controllers, rain sensors, and lines on an existing system. If a system genuinely needs a full re-pipe or redesign, we will tell you honestly rather than take a job outside our scope.

Florida licenses irrigation contracting county by county in most places (Sumter County covers it under its Plumbing Contractor scope, for example), plus a separate voluntary statewide specialty license some contractors hold instead. Ask the technician which license they hold and who issued it, and confirm it with the county or at myfloridalicense.com if it matters to you.

Yes, both repairing existing drip lines and converting a zone or a bed to drip. See the drip irrigation service page for what a conversion typically costs per zone.

Most calls are scheduled within a few days. A zone stuck open or water actively pooling somewhere it shouldn't jumps the queue and can often be seen same-day.

What you're seeing (geyser, dry patch, blank controller, water bill spike), when it started, and your address. If you know your CDD district number, that helps place your watering-day schedule too.