Expert IrrigationA zone is a group of heads on one valve, and when one stops working the cause is somewhere along a chain: controller output, wire, solenoid, valve, mainline, lateral. The job is working along that chain in order rather than guessing at the expensive end of it.
A dead zone with everything else working
If the other zones run, the controller has power and the common wire is intact, which narrows things considerably. We test for voltage at the controller terminal, then resistance at the valve. A break in the field wiring is the awkward case — it can be anywhere between the two, and on properties where the irrigation has been worked on repeatedly there is often no record of the route. We trace rather than trench.
A weak zone
Heads that pop up but barely throw usually mean a pressure loss between the valve and the heads, which on Broward properties normally means a broken lateral underground. The tell is a patch of unusually green or spongy grass somewhere on the run, sometimes a long way from the head that is underperforming. A partially closed flow control on the valve, or a diaphragm not opening fully, produces the same symptom from a different cause.
Why laterals break here
Limestone caprock sits a foot or two down across most of the county, so laterals get run shallower than anyone would ideally like. That makes them reachable by an edger, a fence post, a shovel, a new mailbox, or a root plate lifting in a storm. It is why so many repairs here are mechanical damage rather than a component wearing out, and why we ask what work has been done in the yard recently — the answer often locates the break faster than any equipment.
Adding a zone for new sod or landscaping
New planting is the usual reason to extend a system, and the constraint people miss is the mainline. Systems here typically grew a zone at a time as the property developed, and adding another zone to a mainline that was sized for the original build leaves everything downstream underperforming. We check available flow and pressure before quoting an extension, because the honest answer is sometimes that the new zone needs its own supply rather than a tee off the existing one.
New sod and the watering rules
Broward allows extra watering for new landscaping — one unrestricted watering on the day of installation, then any day except Friday for the first thirty days, and Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday for days thirty-one to ninety. The allowance applies where more than half the zone is new material. Sunrise sets its own version of this that differs from the county rule, so check which applies before you plan the schedule.