So Your New House Came With Sprinklers
You bought the house, and the sprinklers came with it. Now what?
Found a control box in the garage with buttons nobody explained?
Heads are popping up in the yard, with no idea if they all work.
Not sure if the lines were drained before winter, or if the setup is even legal with the city?
In this post, you’ll learn what to do with a sprinkler system you inherited, from finding the parts to testing every zone to getting it checked with a full irrigation inspection before your first summer.
By the end, you’ll know whether you’re sitting on a working system or a buried repair bill.
Here at Simmons Landscape & Irrigation, we’ve mapped and serviced systems across Toledo and Northwest Ohio since 1915, including plenty that the new owners knew nothing about.
What Should You Do With a Sprinkler System That Came With Your House?
If you just bought a house with an existing sprinkler system, take five steps before you rely on it:
- Find the controller, backflow device, and main shutoff.
- Run each zone and watch for leaks, broken heads, and dry spots.
- Confirm the backflow was tested and is up to code.
- Check whether it was winterized last fall.
- Get a professional assessment with a written report.
Do those five, and the system stops being a mystery you’re afraid to touch.
First, Find the Parts
You can’t run a system you can’t find.
Before anything else, track down the main pieces:
- The controller or timer, usually mounted in the garage, basement, or a utility closet.
- The backflow device is a brass or metal fitting near an outside wall or in a box close to the street.
- The main shutoff valve for the irrigation line, so you can kill the water fast if something bursts.
- The valve boxes in the yard, flat green lids at ground level, where the zone valves live.
Then walk the yard and find the sprinkler heads, which sit flush with the grass until a zone runs.
Snap photos of all of it.
You’ll want them when you call for service, because “it’s somewhere in the backyard” doesn’t help anyone.
Run Every Zone and Watch
Once you’ve found the controller, run the system one zone at a time.
This is the fastest way to see what you actually inherited.
Set the controller to run each zone manually, then walk out and watch it work. On each zone, look for:
- Heads that won’t pop up, or pop up and just dribble.
- Water hitting the driveway, siding, or street instead of the lawn.
- Soft, soggy ground or a bubbling spot, which points to a cracked line.
- Dry patches are zones that are supposed to be covered but never are.
Take notes zone by zone.
A system that sat unused for a season often has a stuck valve or a head the mower clipped, and you want that list in hand before you build a watering schedule around it.
Check the Backflow (Is It Even Legal?)
Here’s the one most new owners never think about.
Every in-ground sprinkler system has a backflow preventer, the device that stops lawn water, fertilizer, and whatever’s in the soil from being pulled back into your drinking water.
It’s required.
In most Northwest Ohio cities, it also has to be tested regularly to stay in code, and if you skip that testing, the city can actually pull your water meter.
An inherited system is a blank spot here, because you have no idea whether the previous owner ever had it tested.
Findlay enforces backflow testing and can require a separate irrigation meter, and Bowling Green has its own permit rules.
We’re state backflow-certified, so we test it, certify it, and keep you on the right side of your city before it turns into a fine or a shutoff.
Find Out If It Was Winterized
The scariest unknown with an inherited system is what happened last fall.
If the previous owner didn’t blow out the lines before the first hard freeze, water left in the pipes could have frozen and split them over the winter.
You won’t always see that damage until you pressurize the system in spring, and a zone won’t hold water.
So if you bought in the colder months, don’t just fire it up on the first warm day.
Not worth the gamble.
Ask the seller whether it was winterized, and if nobody knows, treat it as unknown and have it checked before the first full run.
A deliberately cracked line is a repair. Found by accident, it’s a flooded yard and a bigger bill.
Get It Mapped and Documented
You can learn a lot by walking the yard with the controller running.
But an inherited system still hides parts you can’t see: buried lines, wiring, and the true condition of the backflow and valves.
That’s where a professional assessment pays for itself.
We run a zone-by-zone inspection and hand you a written report, every zone, every head, the backflow status, and what it takes to get the system right.
No more guessing.
For a home you just bought, that report turns a mystery system into something you understand and can budget around, whether you’re in Perrysburg, Maumee, or out in the county.
We’re not the cheapest crew around, but we’d rather hand you the full picture than a hopeful once-over.
And if you’d rather have it off your plate for good, our seasonal service keeps it tuned with a spring start-up, a summer checkup, and a fall winterization, so by next year, it isn’t an unknown at all.
Know Exactly What You Own With Simmons Landscape & Irrigation
The status of an inherited sprinkler system is unknown until someone maps every zone, tests it, and certifies the backflow. Because we’ve serviced systems across Northwest Ohio since 1915, our on-site assessment turns that mystery into a written report you can actually plan around.
Fill out our contact form today or give us a call, and we’ll get you scheduled for a zone-by-zone assessment before your first watering season. We don’t overbook, so you get the time it takes to document the whole system, not a rushed once-over.
