Hollywood has a lot of 1950s and 1960s housing stock, and east of Dixie the salt air is hard on anything metal. Most of our work here is corrosion and old pipe, not design.
Anything plated or pot-metal near the beach has a service life measured in a couple of years. We see seized risers, heads that will not retract, swing joints frozen solid and nipples that shear off in your hand the moment you put a wrench on them. On the east-side jobs we carry brass and stainless because the standard hardware will simply fail again, and a part that costs a little more once beats a service call every season.
This is worth knowing before you buy parts yourself. The heads on the shelf at the big-box store are the same ones that corroded the first time.
Closer to the beach the soil is sand, and sand does not puddle. A pinhole leak that would show as a wet patch in clay instead drains straight down and quietly washes a void under the sod. Nobody notices until the water bill jumps or a section of lawn sinks underfoot. By then the void is bigger than the leak.
That is why we isolate by zone and pressure rather than looking for wet grass. On a sandy Hollywood lot, looking for surface water is the slowest possible way to find a leak.
On the older east-side lots there is a point where chasing one failure after another costs more than starting over, and we will tell you which side of that line you are on before any work begins. Sometimes the mainline is sound and only the heads and valves are finished, which is a rebuild rather than a new install and a fraction of the cost. Sometimes the pipe itself is done. We pressure-test the mainline to find out instead of guessing from the age of the house.
Brass and stainless where the salt air demands it, rather than the plated hardware that will seize again by next season.
Isolated by zone and pressure — the only method that works in sand, where leaks never surface.
Tells you whether an old Hollywood system needs a rebuild or a replacement, before you commit to either.
Every zone run, every head aligned, coverage checked for dry corners and for overspray onto pavement and seawalls.
Salt air. Close to the water, plated and pot-metal internals corrode quickly. We fit brass or stainless where it matters, which costs a little more once instead of a service call every season.
In sandy soil a leak drains straight down instead of surfacing, so a healthy-looking lawn means nothing. We isolate zone by zone with a pressure gauge rather than hunting for wet grass.
We pressure-test the mainline first. Buried PVC often outlives the valves, controller and heads attached to it — in which case you need a rebuild, not a new install. If the mainline will not hold pressure, we say so.
Yes, and we expect the corrosion that comes with them. Expect us to recommend better hardware on the east-side jobs than we would two miles inland.
Tell us what it is doing and we will tell you what it is likely to be before we come out.