Best Time of the Day To Sprinkle Lawn
 

I just recently purchased a home in TV but only was able to spend a few days before I had to return to the North. My sprinkler system is set to start for 2 hrs at 7:00 AM. I'm advised that is not a good time. What are your thoughts on this issue.

if the cycle takes 2 hrs then I would start it about 4am...

Usually about 4am is the best time, less evaporation. No lawn watering is suppose to be done after 10am.

Best time to water is the night time; gives the water time to soak in. Quicker evaporation of the water occurs if you water during the day and the water is too expensive to do that.

My son-in-law is a licensed home remodeler and irrigation tech. He says studies point to 4 am as a good time to water the lawn. I follow his advice and my lawn(s) have always looked decent.

I would test the time IMO two hours too long. I see people watering the street drainage ditch cause a lot of the water running off lawns and down the drain. Not only IMO this waste of water and paying for water running down the drain. IMO you could have little runoff if your sprinkler heads are adjusted correctly and not watering the street. I adjusted and monitored mind and have very little runoff. I also evaluated each station and control watering times to the area needs. I know money not problem for some, but water waste should be.

Go to districtgov.org and click on "water wise." It will give you the length of time for rotors and sprayer heads. When we moved in 8 years ago our timer was already set for day & time to start; it went by our address so everyone on the street was not watering at the same time. I also read that 4am is a good time to start. Never water during the daytime. Make sure you have the programmer plugged into a point-of-service surge protector;also your garage door opener. When you're back here, if you live in Sumter County, have them do an energy audit and they will give you a bunch of different surge protectors.

I was told by the UF folks on 466 that nitetime watering can promote fungus and other issues.

4 AM for 2.5 years works good

2 am works best for me.

If you do at 4 am, just check your system routinely. I had a broken head that caused a geyser and didn't know it since it was 4 am. Fortunately one morning there was a real early walker who later came by and told me.

2:27 AM is the best.

Me 01:00 [emoji97]

Having your last zone end at about 6am is the way to go. You want good absorption with as little evaporation as possible .... however, you do not want to have your grass be wet on a reg basis overnight (as in having you last zone end at 2am.

You are correct that undetected leaks can be a prob, when you never see them run. That is way it is a good idea to run all zones manually and observe sprinkler pattern & performance at least twice a year.

Some time in the past I discovered an interesting issue at my house.

For reasons I cannot recall, I woke up at 4 AM. While up I decided to check out my sprinklers.

They were spraying very weekly. Not far enough to get proper coverage.

What I learned was that the pressure can change quite a bit for reasons I never investigated. I changed the time so they now end at 7AM and pressure is great.

I put a pressure gauge in the box (as I was curious) and see quite a variance of static pressure depending on time.

Interesting ..... I believe you are in an area that uses reclaimed water for irrigation as do the golf courses that typically water over night. Might explain the drop in pressure at night because those golf course sprinklers are like fire hoses!!