Overview: Sprinkler & Irrigation Contractors
In Canada, a sprinkler system spends half the year empty. A contractor installs the buried parts, meaning valves, pipe, heads and a backflow preventer, then comes back at both ends of the season. The spring startup brings water up slowly and checks every zone. The fall blowout pushes the water out with compressed air before a hard frost can split anything.
Watering rules come from your municipality, and they shape how a controller gets programmed. Metro Vancouver's usual lawn watering rules, for example, give automatic sprinklers a shorter morning window than someone watering by hand. Ask the contractor to set the schedule to your local bylaw before a bylaw officer does it for you.
Most service calls are small. A head has sunk below the sod, a nozzle is clogged with grit, a valve won't close, or a plough blade has clipped a head along the boulevard.
Our listings show what each irrigation contractor states on its own website about the systems it installs and services. Choose your province, then your city, to find crews that start up and shut down sprinklers in your area.
Frequently asked questions
Do utility lines need marking before sprinkler trenches get dug?
In Ontario, yes, and it's a legal duty rather than a courtesy. Ontario One Call handles locate requests for free, and you have to ask at least five business days before digging on a single property. Sprinkler trenches are shallow, but cables and gas lines can run close to the surface. Most other provinces have their own locate services. Ask your contractor who books the locates, and wait for the paint marks.
What is a backflow preventer for?
It keeps water sitting in your irrigation pipes, among soil and fertilizer, from being pulled back into the drinking supply. The rules come from your local water utility. Calgary, for instance, requires a test each time the system is turned on for the season, done by a tester registered with the city, who then sends in the report. Ask whether your municipality runs a similar program before the first startup.
Why does one patch of grass stay dry?
Look at the heads before blaming the controller. Frost can tilt a head over the winter, and a plough or lawn mower can knock one sideways. Sod also creeps over heads that sit too low. If every head on one zone throws short, that zone has too many heads for the water pressure, or there's a leak upstream. Run each zone by hand and walk it while it waters.
Does the system need draining before winter?
Anywhere the ground freezes, which is most of Canada, yes. Water left in pipes, valves and the backflow device expands as it freezes and cracks them, and you find out at startup. A proper blowout clears each zone with compressed air at a gentle pressure that spares the heads. Book it early in the fall, because every crew in town is chasing the same frost.
Is drip better than sprinklers for beds?
For beds, hedges and pots, yes, and some local rules favour it. Metro Vancouver's usual lawn watering rules put no set hours on true drip irrigation, though micro-sprays don't count as drip there. Drip needs a pressure regulator and a filter, and a blocked emitter gives no warning. It gets blown out in the fall with everything else. Lawns stay on sprinklers.
