A system designed for Ohio and installed in Broward will disappoint you. The soil is different, the rock is different, the water is different, and you are legally limited to watering two days a week. A system built for those constraints uses less water and holds up longer.
Designing around two watering days
Broward's two-day rule is the single biggest design constraint here, and it is not going away. Your system has to deliver a full week of water in two windows, both outside of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. That means head spacing and precipitation rates have to be right, because there is no room to compensate with extra days. It also means head-to-head coverage is not a nicety — a system with gaps cannot make them up with frequency the way it could in a three-day or unrestricted market.
One precipitation rate per zone
The most common design defect we find in existing South Florida systems is spray heads and rotors sharing a valve. Sprays put down three quarters of an inch to two inches an hour; rotors put down a quarter inch to one inch. On the same zone, one of them is always wrong. Every zone we build runs a single head type at a single precipitation rate, with turf and planting beds separated.
Working over caprock
Margate, Hallandale, and Boca soils all carry limestone or marl in the profile, and crews here routinely hit rock a foot down. That constrains trench depth, which is exactly why so many Broward laterals get damaged by lawn equipment later. Where we cannot get proper depth, we say so and we route around it — under a bed line, along a hardscape edge, anywhere that is not going to meet an edger blade in three years.
Zone expansion for new sod or landscaping
If you are re-sodding or adding beds, the new material has its own legal watering allowance. Broward permits one unrestricted watering the day of installation. For days one through thirty you can water Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday — everything but Friday. Days thirty-one through ninety drop to Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. That allowance applies only where more than half the zone is new material, so it is worth zoning new landscaping separately rather than folding it into an existing run. Sunrise sets its own new-sod hours, before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m., so check locally.
Backflow prevention
If a property has a dedicated irrigation service or draws from a well, lake, or canal, Broward municipalities require a backflow prevention assembly with annual testing and certification. Non-compliance can mean water service gets shut off. A lot of older well-fed systems in this county have a device that was never permitted, never tested, or is simply missing. We check for it and tell you where you stand.
Grass matters more than people expect
Floratam St. Augustine dominates Broward lawns and it needs at least six hours of direct sun daily — it will thin out in shade no matter how well the irrigation is designed, and its original chinch bug resistance has largely been lost over the decades. Palmetto holds up better against chinch bug. CitraBlue is more drought tolerant than Floratam, Palmetto, or Raleigh. If you are re-sodding anyway, the cultivar choice will affect your water bill more than anything we can do with heads.