There are a few things you should keep in mind.

Make sure you have a "vacuum breaker" that is at least a foot higher than
your highest head. This will keep water from flowing back into your house.

Get a good timer that can schedule multiple spray and drip zones - you'll
probably change at least one zone to drip if you have a flower garden area.
Also make sure your timer can handle non-regular watering days and
restrictions.

If you're in an area that gets a reasonable amount of rain, consider a rain
sensor to avoid watering during a rain storm.

Head placement - every section of your spray zones must be covered by two
heads. This means that if you use 15 ft heads, they can't be more than 15
feet apart. Use spray heads and not rotating heads. Spray heads are more
efficient. Also, make sure the heads are all level, even on a slope.

Get a map of all piping and head locations - you'll need to dig up something
down the road and knowing where your system is physically located makes life
a lot easier.

If you have a whole house water softener, tap your water line before the
water softener. There's no need to waste the water softener consumables on
watering your yard and gardens.

Make sure you know how to drain the system. A lot of companies will do it
for you, but sometimes you're watching the evening news and the weather
forcast is for a heavy freeze. You need to be able to drain your system in
the dark and on short notice. This is especially true if you live in an
area that is prone to late spring freezes or early snows followed by indian
summer.

Find out where to get replacement parts - they do break, especially if you
run over a head.

Finally, don't expect a sprinkler system to cut your water bill that much,
unless you habitually over water or forget to turn off the hose. They do
save a lot of time, however.

Mike Ober.

"Tony" wrote in message
...
I'm planning to have a lawn sprinkler installed. Overall property size is
1/3 acre, less house and driveway.

None of my friends have had work of this sort done, so I've called several
local nurseries and a lawn service I've had good success with for
references. Every one of these places said their primary recommendation
was
the same company in this area. Interestingly enough, when calling around
to
businesses in the area, I had the best "vibe" from this place even before
seeking references. It's also nice that this business is less than 2
miles
from my home.

This is a heavy business time for this work in our area, and so it may be
a
couple of weeks before someone can come out to look over my property and
give me an estimate. A few other businesses in the area gave me a "rough
quote" over the phone. A couple of businesses even gave me the specific
price they charged for other homes in my neighborhood with yards and
systems
of similar size to mine. I'm prepared to pay whatever cost would be
reasonable to get a high quality system. (We've saved a while to get this
put in, and I want to have it done right.)

What kinds of questions should I specifically ask the representative when
he
comes by? Apart from the overall design of the system, placement of
heads,
types of heads used, manufacturer and warranty, are there any other good
questions to ask?

Since this company is of such excellent reputation, I'd like to rely on
their expertise, but at the same time I want to go into this fully
informed
as to potential pitfalls.

A year or so ago I sent my yard info off to Toro to have them spec out a
system if I were to do it myself. The system was so intimidating, I
decided
a professional install would be the way to go. Is it likely that a local
company would install a system very similar to the one Toro spec'd out, or
was that system overkill (to sell more Toro heads and equipment)?

I'd really like to have a sophisticated controller since the sytem is
likely
to be spec'd out with several zones, and there is a difference in the type
of grass and amount of sun present in each zone. Any recommendations on
this kind of equipment? Is there a difference in the "high end"
controllers
and the el cheapo versions?

My yard does have a good number of trees in certain areas. They are very
mature oak and magnolia trees. I don't think there'd be any reason that
sprinkler lines would need to run extremely close to these trees, but I
can
see the trenching cutting some of the roots that are close to the lawn
surface. Is this any great cause for concern?

Tony