Your grass is browning in patches, the water bill crept up, and you’re standing in the yard wondering if you need a whole new sprinkler system. Take a breath. Most of the time you don’t. Here in the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio, we run into the same handful of irrigation problems over and over, and the fix is usually a repair, not a replacement.
This guide walks you through how to tell the difference, including a catch-can test you can run yourself this weekend.
Should I repair or replace my sprinkler system?
Repair first. Nine times out of ten, the problem is a few worn heads, a stuck valve, or a controller that got knocked off schedule, and those are cheap, fast fixes. Replacement only makes sense when the bones of the system are wrong.
Think of it like your truck. A bad alternator doesn’t mean you buy a new truck. The same logic holds for irrigation. Broken heads, leaky seals, and clogged nozzles are the alternator. You replace the part and move on. You only start over when the design itself is the problem, meaning the pipe layout, the water pressure, or the way the zones are split up can’t deliver even coverage no matter how many parts you swap.
Central Texas makes this call matter more than most places. Our summers are brutal, our watering days are limited by local restrictions, and an inefficient system wastes water you’re only allowed to use on certain days. The EPA’s WaterSense program estimates that as much as half the water an average home uses outdoors is lost to wind, evaporation, and runoff from inefficient watering. A repaired, well-tuned system pays you back fast.
What can be repaired vs. what needs a redesign?
If the problem lives in a specific part, it’s a repair. If the problem is baked into the layout, it’s a redesign. Here’s the honest breakdown we use on a service call.
Repair territory (isolated, part-level fixes):
- A head that won’t pop up, won’t retract, or sprays sideways, usually just mineral buildup or a cracked seal
- Dry or brown patches around one or two heads while the rest of the zone looks fine
- A single zone that won’t turn on, which is almost always a bad solenoid, a wiring break, or a stuck valve
- Low pressure in one zone only, often a clog, a partially closed valve, or a small underground leak
- A controller that runs at the wrong time or skips days, which is a programming or timer fix, not a plumbing one
- Geysers or misting from a broken head or a chewed-up nozzle
Redesign territory (the layout itself is wrong):
- Chronic dry spots no amount of head-swapping fixes, meaning the heads simply don’t reach each other
- Whole zones that never had enough pressure to run all their heads at once
- Spray zones and rotor zones mixed on the same valve, which water at completely different rates
- A system that floods your clay soil faster than it can soak in, causing runoff down the driveway
- Grass and flower beds sharing a zone, so one is always drowning while the other goes thirsty
- Coverage that was never designed for head-to-head throw, where each head should reach the next one
The rule of thumb: isolated heads, valves, and controllers are repairs. Bad layout, bad pressure, bad coverage, and bad zoning are redesigns. If you keep fixing the same dry spot and it keeps coming back, that’s the layout telling you the truth.
Why does my lawn have dry spots even though the sprinklers run?
Dry spots usually mean uneven coverage, not a lack of water. The sprinklers run, but they’re not throwing water evenly across the whole area, so some grass gets soaked and some gets missed.
A few Central Texas culprits show up again and again. Hard water leaves mineral scale that narrows nozzle openings and throws off the spray pattern, so a head that used to cover 15 feet now barely reaches 10. Heads drift out of alignment after mowing or foot traffic and end up watering the fence instead of the lawn. And our clay soil is a sneaky one. Clay takes water slowly, so if a zone dumps water faster than the ground can absorb it, most of it runs off toward the street and the middle of the zone stays dry even though plenty of water came out.
Sometimes the pattern of the dry spots tells you the whole story. Round dead patches centered between heads mean your heads aren’t reaching each other, a coverage problem. Wilting on slopes with wet spots at the bottom means runoff, a soil-and-scheduling problem. Before you assume the worst, though, measure what’s actually landing on your grass. That’s where the catch-can test comes in.
How do I do a simple catch-can test?
A catch-can test measures how evenly your sprinklers distribute water, and it’s the single most useful thing a homeowner can do to diagnose a system. You set out containers, run a zone, and compare how much water each one caught. It takes about 20 minutes per zone and costs you nothing.
Here’s the workflow:
- Grab identical containers. Tuna cans, cat food cans, or straight-sided cups all work. You want the same size and shape so the measurements are fair. Six to ten per zone is plenty.
- Space them across the zone. Put some near the heads, some in the middle, and some in the dry spots you’re worried about. Keep them level on the ground.
- Run the zone for 15 minutes. Use your controller’s manual setting so you get an exact, even run time.
- Measure the depth in each can. A ruler works. Write down the number for every container.
- Compare high to low. If your cans are close to each other, coverage is even and the system is doing its job. If some cans hold twice as much water as others, you have uneven distribution, which is your dry-spot problem in plain numbers.
- Add it up for scheduling. The average depth tells you how fast the zone applies water. If you caught half an inch in 15 minutes, the zone puts down two inches an hour, and you can set run times to hit your target without runoff.
Texas A&M’s AgriLife Water University teaches this same audit method, and it’s the foundation of how licensed irrigators evaluate a system. If your cans come out even, your bones are good and you likely just need minor repairs and better scheduling. If they’re wildly uneven and no head adjustment evens them out, that’s a coverage or pressure problem pointing toward redesign.
When does replacement actually make sense?
Replacement makes sense when repairs stop holding and the design is the real problem. If you’ve swapped heads, cleaned nozzles, and re-timed the controller and you’re still fighting the same dry spots, the layout was never right and patching it further just wastes money.
A few other honest signs it’s time to rebuild: the system is 15 to 20 years old with cracking pipe and failing valves across every zone, the original install used too few heads to ever reach head-to-head coverage, or you’ve re-landscaped and the old zone layout no longer matches where your grass and beds actually are. A full redesign is also the moment to add smart, water-saving upgrades like pressure-regulated heads, matched-precipitation nozzles, and a weather-based controller. The Irrigation Association’s consumer resources are a good place to read up on what modern efficient systems include before you commit.
Who should do the work in Texas?
For anything beyond basic maintenance, use a TCEQ-licensed irrigator. Texas law requires a licensed irrigator to install, alter, repair, or maintain an irrigation system that’s connected to a public water supply, which covers nearly every home system on the I-35 corridor. You can clean a nozzle or straighten a head yourself, but design changes, new zones, valve work, and backflow protection should go to a pro who’s licensed to do it right and keep you compliant.
That’s where we come in. Corral Bros is a family-run outfit working the Austin-to-San Antonio corridor, and we’d rather fix what you have than sell you something you don’t need. Our irrigation service starts with a real diagnosis, catch-can test included, and we’ll tell you straight whether you’re looking at a $150 repair or a system that’s earned its retirement. We also handle the lawn maintenance that keeps a healthy, evenly watered yard looking sharp, and we’re proud to serve homeowners across Austin and the surrounding towns.
Fighting dry spots or a zone that won’t fire? Request a free quote or call us at (737) 404-9343. We’ll figure out what’s actually wrong before anybody talks about replacing anything.