I have a new house that is still under warranty. Compared to at least two of my neighbors whose houses were built by the same builder and have very similar sprinkler systems, my sprinklers put out very low water pressure. The water pressure is so low that several sprinklers don't even deploy (that is they don't fully come out of the ground).
I demonstrated the problem to the builder, and he's sent out two different contractors in succession (first was a sprinkler guy, then was a plumber) that have said that it's not their area of expertise. The plumber confirmed that the decrease in water pressure was localized to the sprinkler system (water pressure at the exterior spigots was 55 psi, I believe), which I already knew from anecdotal experience, and said that an irrigation specialist would be the one to call.
Given the way the last two experiences have turned out, I'm hesitant to tell the builder to call a third contractor before I have a better understanding of the steps needed to get this problem solved, because to this point I've just had to take what the contractor's have said at face value.
So here are some specifics I would like to know:
- Is it likely that the plumber is right, that the problem will necessitate an irrigation specialist (by process of elimination, I would expect this is true, but I had no idea of the existence of such a specialist before the plumber mentioned it)?
- Are there any steps that I can take to better prepare for the next contractor?
- Is there information that I'm missing that I should try to collect? I've basically given all of this information to the builder and the contractors, but we still haven't arrived at a solution.
- Neither of the two contractors spent more than a couple minutes trying to diagnose the problem. Once I'm pretty sure I have the right sort of contractor, is there anything I can do to make sure that the he or she actually works to pinpoint the precise problem before trying to pass me along to someone else?
Notes:
- I haven't noticed any water pooling in my yard, so if there's a leak in the irrigation system, it's not obvious where it is, but my yard is pitched pretty sharply for drainage purposes, so I don't think that this indicates that there is no leak.
- Water pressure in the house is quite good
- At each step, I've actually had to push to get everyone to acknowledge that the problem isn't just that the city is not supplying my house with enough water pressure, which considering all the above, indicates to me that this is the sort of problem that nobody wants to deal with, probably because it's difficult and time consuming.
- The sprinkler system is separated into zones, one of which only has two sprinklers, so I think that it's unlikely that the system simply has too many continuously running sprinklers to maintain enough water pressure.