A green lawn. A thriving landscape bursting with gorgeous plants and brilliant blooms. It gives your home great curb appeal and makes you beam with pride every time you pull into your driveway and see your estate.
But the dry, hot days of a Kansas City summer can quickly turn your lawn and leaves brown, causing your landscape to wilt and make your entire property slump.
Moving sprinklers around your yard can help you water, but that can be time-consuming and inconsistent.
To enjoy your landscape and give it the supplemental water it needs, installing an irrigation system could be your solution.
Professionally installed irrigation systems deliver the right amount of water to the right locations at the right times, keeping your lawn happy and healthy without using too much water. Plants that receive the right amount of water can also stand stronger against disease and pest risks. But, most of all, you can enjoy your yard more when it’s well cared for.
As you ponder the possibility of installing an irrigation system in Kansas City, you might be wondering how much this landscape addition costs.
Let’s review the price of a sprinkler system installation and what’s behind those costs.
3 Factors That Influence Sprinkler System Installation Costs
First, let’s get right to the cost range you’re looking for — the reason you’re reading this blog in the first place.
The cost to install an irrigation system in your yard can range between $7,000 and $100,000, depending on the size of your home and yard and the complexity of your landscape.
We know what you’re thinking: That’s a wide range and an irrigation professional will have to eventually give you an exact cost.
Here are some of the elements that can rise or lower a sprinkler system’s price tag.
Yard Size
Obviously, one of the major factors that impacts your irrigation system cost is size.
In your yard, each type of plant needs its own zone with a different type of irrigation. Then, your turf will typically use a fixed spray or rotating sprinkler head, while your trees, shrubs, and annuals will use a slower, more water-efficient drip irrigation.
A small irrigation system will only have 5 to 10 zones, while larger irrigation systems will have 20 to 40 zones. The more complex your landscape is, the more zones you will need.
Also, with more zones you’ll also need larger pipe sizes and more wire to accommodate the water pressure necessary to run a larger system.
Some physical obstacles can also raise the price tag, such as flower containers, patios, utilities, or even a driveway that your professional irritation expert has to run pipe underneath. These work-arounds can add to the complexity and sprinkler system installation cost.
Materials
Other factors that can impact the cost to install an irrigation system are the materials chosen.
For instance, certain spray heads have check valves that seal the heads to prevent water from leaking out when not pressurized. These are particularly helpful on slopes and large zones to prevent water from leaking out of the lowest head on the zone, eliminating wet spots or soggy areas and conserving water.
The Irrigation Controller
Another product that can add to the price when you install an irrigation system in Kansas City is the controller you choose.
There are basic controllers that you set up a schedule to run at specific times on specific days for certain durations. These are the “dumber” controllers on the market right now.
In this age of the Internet and smartphones, a “smart” controller is a better choice. This type of controller uses data such as sun, shade, soil type, plant type, and can even get weather data from local weather stations. These additional metrics can increase the accuracy of your irrigation and enable you to save more water.
These smart controllers can also be run from your phone or a smart home system. (So the next time you spot your neighbor who doesn’t clean up after his dog walking near your property, you can say, “Alexa, run the front sprays,” giving your lawn a little extra protection from Rover.)
Our High Prairie experts like to use Hydrawise smart controllers. These give us the best capabilities for remote control and weather-based smart programming. But we are always looking for new innovations in irrigation technology to help save our clients the most water possible, while still keeping their properties green and growing.
Is It Worth It to Install a Sprinkler System in Kansas City?
When you invest in a smarter strategy for watering your home landscape than just hand watering or moving a small sprinkler around your yard every 30 minutes for a few hours, you’re investing in more than just a sprinkler system.
You’re targeting your time to higher priorities on your home to-do list, and you’re also becoming a better steward of your home environment. Water is an extremely valuable resource, and saving it can make you feel better about how you care for your landscape.
If you are a vigilant gardener who was hand-watering your yard previously, you’ll notice immediate water and time savings when you install an irrigation system. The same can be said for those of you who were relying on only Mother Nature for water, but you’ll also notice a better-looking, healthier landscape. This is because you have improved the quality of your watering.
Kansas City residents who choose to have their irrigation systems professionally designed and installed can generally realize a decrease of 10% to 30% in water usage during the months of June, July, and August as a result of sprinkler system efficiency. That’s quite a bit of dollars back in your pocket for you to save for your next summer vacation or landscape improvement project.
If you’d like to know more about the various sprinkler system options we offer and the cost to install an irrigation system, give High Prairie Outdoors’s irrigation professionals a call. We’d be happy to look at your property and give you an estimate for the price of an irrigation system, as well as a look at the water and time savings you can realize as a result.
Ready to learn why High Prairie Outdoors could be your choice for professional irrigation in Kansas City? We’d love to learn more about you. Get started today with a free consultation. Together, we can prepare a custom plan that meets the watering needs of your outdoor living space.