I never heard of irrigation donuts and donut hole cutters, till I came to TV. That being said I have had a lot of experience with both recently.
If you think for one minute you will remember where all your sprinkler heads are in your yard, then your a better man than I. Enter the item called a donut. Its made of green colored concrete and sized to fit around your sprinkler head to stop the growth of grass encroaching over the head and preventing it from "popping" up. It also helps you find the head once the grass becomes actively growing. I can't begin to tell you the situations I have seen with dead grass because of hidden, buried, broken and non functional sprinkler heads. There is a neet little donut hole cutter at home depot that will last for the average homeowner, that allows you to cut the surrounding grass and re-setting the donut. It's not strong enough for my use so I have an invention to "beef" it up if you break yours.
My advice to all home owners is spend the small amount for donuts and re-set them yearly and don't hesitate to run your irrigation system on manual and check to see that the coverage and function of all your heads are proper. So often I have seen sprinkler heads buried and locked down by grass growth and end up watering an area the size of a dinner plate. Water is precious in our country, so do your part to use it wisely.
Handie

Originally Posted by mguarrasi (Post 199471) Do you know of anyone that provides the service of intalling these and what the approximate cost would be for each one?

Originally Posted by under55 (Post 199501) Don the Donut Man charges $2.50 per donut and that includes all labor and material.

Originally Posted by Hawkwind (Post 199486) Handie, great information. Now let's take this posting one step further. How about a weekly Handie's Hot Tips posting covering some of the issues that you have encountered. For us from other parts of the country may have never encountered things that are common in TV. Maybe we can even get Jan and Tony to create a new group to cover your weekly postings so that everything is orginazed in one place.

Thank you "Hawkwind" for the nice comment. I'd love to share some of my experiences with all village homeowners. A minute shared with a homeowner can result in a lot of time and money savings down the road
Handie

If you go around and give each donut a healthy shot of Round Up once a month on a day after the sprinklers run, it will keep down the growth around the sprinkler heads. At least once a year remove the donut and clean out the area around the sprinkler head and reseat the donuts. After a period of time they start to sink into the ground and make the sprinkler heads more vulnerable to damage from the lawn mowing machinery.

Originally Posted by NJblue (Post 199672) This may be a dumb question, but why not just do the Round Up thing and skip the donuts? I find all those concrete donuts to be an eyesore. I have never used them up North, but perhaps this will be a learning lesson about living in Florida with zoysia. I wish that there were a more aesthetic recourse than pieces of concrete around my yard and perhaps a small Round-Up enduced dead spot may be better than concrete.