Your sprinklers are supposed to be the thing you never think about. When a zone stops working, a head snaps off at the collar, or the timer starts doing something nobody asked it to, you need somebody who diagnoses it correctly the first time instead of replacing parts until the symptom goes away. That is what we have been doing across Broward County for eight years.
Expert Irrigation is a six-person crew working residential irrigation from Boca Raton down to Fort Lauderdale and west to Weston. We hold 98 Google reviews at a 4.7 average and 137 reviews on Thumbtack, where we have been named a Top Pro three times. Most repairs get finished the same day we look at them. A diagnostic visit is $89 and it comes straight off your repair total if you go ahead — new system quotes are still free.
What we do
- Sprinkler repair — heads, nozzles, valves, solenoids, broken laterals, wiring faults, and zones that will not shut off
- System installation and zone expansion for new landscaping, sod, or additions
- Irrigation pump and shallow well service — pressure loss, loss of prime, sand, iron staining, and pump replacement
- Smart controller upgrades and timer replacement, including rain sensors and moisture-based scheduling
Why South Florida systems fail the way they do
Broward is not a normal irrigation market and systems here do not fail the way the national troubleshooting articles describe. Most of this county was built on dredge-and-fill sand sitting on limestone caprock twelve to twenty-four inches down. That means laterals get run shallower than a contractor would like, which puts them directly in the path of edgers, shovels, and ficus roots. UF/IFAS has documented ficus root systems cracking pipes and sprinkler lines outright, and a ficus hedge along a property line usually runs exactly parallel to a perimeter zone. When the same run leaks three times in two years, that is not bad luck.
The shallow caprock also changes how the system should be scheduled. UF/IFAS recommends applying half an inch to three quarters of an inch per watering — but notes that many South Florida soils are too shallow to hold that much. On a thin-soil Broward lot, a long single cycle partly drains straight past the root zone. The fix is shorter cycles run more than once, not a longer run time. Most controllers in this county were set once at installation and never adjusted again.
When people discover their system is broken
Roughly seventy percent of South Florida's rain falls between mid-May and mid-October. During those months daily storms cover for a system that is not really working. The damage happens in summer — lightning taking out controllers and solenoids, roots closing in, valve diaphragms cooking in full-sun valve boxes — but the symptoms stay hidden. Then the rain stops in October and the dead zones show up as brown patches. Most homeowners notice in November what actually broke in July.
March through May is the other pressure point. Peak evaporation, minimum rainfall, weak wells drawing down, and marginal pumps failing under maximum duty. If your system has a weakness, spring finds it.
Broward watering rules, briefly
Broward County allows landscape irrigation two days a week — note that Boca Raton and the rest of Palm Beach County get three. Odd-numbered addresses water Wednesday and/or Saturday. Even-numbered addresses water Thursday and/or Sunday. Nobody waters Monday, Tuesday or Friday, and nobody irrigates between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on any day. Private wells are not exempt from any of this, which is the single most common misunderstanding we run into. We keep a plain-English guide to the rules for every city we serve, including the exceptions for new sod, reclaimed water, and drip.
Before you call us about brown spots
Part the grass at the edge of a brown patch and look down into the thatch. Southern chinch bug runs seven to ten generations a year in South Florida, and the damage looks exactly like drought stress — it is the most common misdiagnosis in St. Augustine lawns. If you find insects, you need a lawn treatment company, not us. We would rather tell you that on the phone than charge you for a service call to find out.
Service area
Fort Lauderdale, Plantation, Davie, Sunrise, Weston, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Wilton Manors and Oakland Park across Broward — plus Boca Raton and everything in between, including Hillsboro Beach, Highland Beach, Lighthouse Point and Parkland.
