Maintaining a lush lawn and manicured garden requires a lot more work than just routine watering with a hose. Many homeowners, rely on an irrigation system to take the hassle out of manual watering. While irrigation systems can be convenient and efficient, they also come with certain responsibilities to ensure your homes water quality safety. The best way to separate outside contaminates from our kitchen sink is through backflow testing.
What is backflow?
You may ask, what even is backflow? In layman’s terms, backflow is the reversal flow of water in a plumbing system. There are two main forms of backflow, but for an irrigation system, the primarily concern is back siphonage. This occurs when there is a pressure loss in the water supply resulting in a vacuum that sucks water from downstream back up to the source. In an irrigation system, it can be very dangerous for the homeowner. Any fertilizer, pesticides, animal waste, dirt, and bacteria can be sucked right back into your clean drinking water.
Steps to safety
Thanks to the 1973 Safe Drinking Water Act, all properly installed irrigation systems are equipped with a testable backflow preventer. This device allows water to flow out to the lawn, but not back in. When the pressure drops and a siphon begins, the device opens up letting air into the system which breaks the siphon. After years of consistent use, changing weather conditions, winterization blow outs and mechanical ware, a backflow preventer can fail leaving you unprotected. The good news is, these devices can be tested and we recommend that they get serviced every season upon start up to ensure your family is properly protected.
What should you do?
Call Backflow Testing Services, 1 (800) 691-4990, to come inspect and test your backflow preventer upon start up of your irrigation system. You may be surprised to find out that you and your family are at risk of drinking contaminated water.