Reticulation Installation and Repairs WA 2026 - Get Quotes

The Rules That Shape a Western Australian System

Retic in Perth is designed backwards from the watering rules, not forwards from the garden. Households on the scheme are allocated two watering days a week based on the last digit of the street number, nothing may run between 9am and 6pm, and the whole metropolitan area plus Mandurah and parts of the South West switches off entirely from 1 June to 31 August each year. That is a much tighter envelope than a garden in Sydney or Brisbane has to work within, and it is the reason a system copied from an east coast design underperforms here. The irrigation and garden watering systems guide for WA sets out how watering fits into the wider garden.

The practical consequence is that every station has to do a week's work in two short windows. Most systems run before sunrise, because wind picks up through the afternoon and evening watering leaves foliage damp overnight. With only two nights available and a limited number of stations able to run in sequence before daylight, the number of stations a property can support is capped by arithmetic, and no budget changes that. A competent designer works that out before quoting, well before commissioning day. It is also why two installers can look at the same garden and propose six stations and nine, with both being defensible depending on how they have grouped the areas. What matters is that the reasoning is explained and the number does not simply appear.

Roster days matter more than people expect when a system is being extended. Adding four new stations to a garden that already runs six means ten stations have to complete in the same pre-dawn window, so either run times shorten or the system starts earlier. Sometimes the answer is a second controller program, sometimes it is regrouping stations by plant type so thirsty zones get longer and established natives get less. Either way it is a design decision, not something to leave to whoever turns up with a trencher. Extensions are the point at which a system quietly stops performing, because nobody recalculates the window and every station simply gets a shorter run.

Bore owners are often surprised to learn the roster applies to them too. A garden bore in Perth is subject to the same two day a week allocation, the same daytime ban and the same winter switch off as a scheme water garden, because the rules exist to manage groundwater levels, not to ration the pipe network. The advantage of a bore is cost per litre, and it does not buy freedom to water whenever you like. Anyone quoting on the basis that a bore lets you water daily has that wrong.

There are exemptions and they are worth knowing about. New lawn and new garden establishment can attract a temporary exemption, hand watering with a hose fitted with a trigger nozzle is generally permitted outside the banned hours, and some situations such as verge works follow their own arrangements. The Water Corporation publishes the current rules each season and it is worth checking them rather than relying on what a neighbour did three summers ago. Penalties apply for watering outside the roster, and the utility does act on reports. New turf exemptions in particular have conditions attached and a set duration rather than being open ended, so it pays to apply and find out.

All of this is why WA has a trade that barely exists elsewhere. Retic specialists here deal with roster programming, bore pumps, iron staining and limestone trenching as routine work, and the good ones know which suburbs sit on deep sand, which sit on the Tamala limestone and which have a shallow water table. That local knowledge is worth more than a brand preference. It is also the first thing to test when you are choosing between quotes. Ask an installer what the ground is like in your street and the answer tells you quickly whether they have worked in the area or are pricing from a map. Local contractors usually know before they arrive.

Garden Bore or Scheme Water

Roughly speaking, a Perth garden runs on one of two supplies, and which one you have changes the system, the running cost and the maintenance. Scheme water arrives clean and pressurised from the mains, needs no pump and leaves no marks on paving, but every litre is metered and charged. A garden bore draws from the superficial aquifer through a pump, costs very little to run beyond electricity, and is the reason so many established suburbs stay green through February. Both are subject to the same roster. A third of a typical water bill can sit in the garden, which is why bores are so common in the older established suburbs where reticulated gardens were designed in from the beginning.

Bore water in Perth commonly carries dissolved iron, and that is the single biggest practical drawback. As soon as the water hits air the iron oxidises and leaves the orange staining familiar on limestone walls, white paving, fences and rendered walls across the northern suburbs. Nozzle selection and head placement reduce how much water lands on hard surfaces, and some households run an iron filter or a treatment system, but no arrangement removes the problem entirely. Where staining is already established, cleaning and sealing is the usual remedy, and the concrete and paver cleaning page covers what that involves. Limestone walls and blockwork stain particularly readily because the surface is porous, so on properties with limestone retaining walls it is worth keeping bore spray off the stonework from the outset.

A bore is a serious piece of infrastructure, not a tap, and it carries its own maintenance. Pumps wear, pressure tanks lose their charge, bore casings silt up over years and delivery drops away gradually enough that owners often do not notice until a station will no longer lift a rotor. A pressure test and a flow test tell you whether the problem is the pump, the bore or the retic itself, and that distinction matters because the three are fixed by different trades at very different prices. Anyone quoting a new pump without measuring flow first is guessing. A bore that has lost delivery to silting will not be fixed by a bigger pump, and fitting one usually accelerates the problem. Redevelopment or a new bore is the honest answer in that situation.

Scheme water systems bring a compliance requirement bores do not. Where retic connects to a scheme supply there must be backflow prevention so garden water cannot be drawn back into the drinking water network, and the arrangement has to comply with AS/NZS 3500.1. That connection is plumbing work and belongs to a licensed plumber rather than a landscaper, which the plumbing services page covers in more detail. A quote that installs a new scheme water system without mentioning backflow prevention has left out a legal requirement. It is not an expensive item in the context of a full installation, and its absence from a quote says more about the contractor than about the price.

Choosing between the two is mostly a question of what the property already has. Sinking a new bore is a significant cost and depends entirely on whether there is usable groundwater beneath the address, which varies enormously between the coastal plain and the hills. Where a bore already exists, keeping it running is almost always cheaper than switching the garden to scheme water. Where there is none, the honest comparison is the cost of drilling against years of water charges, and on a small courtyard garden the scheme supply usually wins. On a large block with substantial lawn the arithmetic flips, and a bore can pay for itself inside a decade. Properties with a pool sometimes go a step further and run both, and the pool installation page covers how that plant is typically arranged.

A third option appears occasionally and is worth a mention. Some households run the garden from a rainwater tank, which suits a small bed and a drip system rather than lawn, given how little rain falls between November and March. Greywater is also used on some properties under specific conditions, and the greywater system installation page explains the requirements. Neither replaces a bore or a scheme connection on a typical suburban lawn.

Designing for Perth Soils and Gardens

Most of metropolitan Perth sits on sand, and sand changes everything about how a system should be set up. Water moves down through it fast and sideways barely at all, so a long soak mostly disappears below the root zone and a light sprinkle never reaches it. The right answer is generally shorter, well matched run times with good uniformity of coverage rather than long soaks, and wetting agents in summer to stop the sand going hydrophobic. An installer who talks about how the soil behaves is designing, and one who talks only about sprinkler brands is supplying parts. Soil improvement also does more for water retention on a Perth block than any upgrade to the hardware, since compost and clay amendment give sand something to hold moisture against. A wetting agent through summer is the cheap companion to that.

Zoning is where good systems separate from average ones. Stations should be grouped by what the plants need and by how the heads deliver, so lawn is separate from garden beds, spray heads are never mixed with rotors on the same station, and shaded southern beds are separate from a west facing strip that cops the afternoon sun. Mixing head types on one station guarantees that half the zone is drowning while the other half is dry, because rotors and sprays apply water at completely different rates. This is the single most common design fault on older Perth systems. It usually happens because stations were added over the years by different people, each tapping into whatever line was closest instead of the zone that matched.

Head selection follows the shape of the area. Pop up sprays suit lawns up to around six metres across and narrow verge strips, gear driven rotors cover larger open lawns from fewer heads, and drip line is the sensible choice in garden beds where evaporation and wind drift waste a great deal of a spray's output. Matched precipitation nozzles let quarter, half and full circle heads run on the same station without over watering the corners. Hunter, Rain Bird, Toro and K-Rain all make ranges that cover these situations, and most Perth installers work mainly in one or two of them. Sticking to a single brand across the property is worth doing, because nozzles, bodies and internals are not interchangeable between manufacturers and future repairs become much simpler.

Pipework and fittings are the part nobody sees and the part that determines whether the system leaks in five years. Low density polyethylene in 19mm and 25mm is standard for laterals across Perth, with larger mains where flow demands it, and the joiners should be rated fittings properly clamped over the pipe. Trenches need enough depth that an edger or a garden fork will not find the pipe, which typically means around 200 to 300 millimetres on laterals. Where a system crosses a driveway or path, a conduit sleeve laid at the same time saves cutting concrete later, and the paving and driveway installation page is worth reading before hard surfaces go down.

Limestone is the WA complication that catches interstate installers out. Large parts of the coastal suburbs sit on Tamala limestone, sometimes a hundred millimetres below the sand and sometimes right at the surface, and a trencher that flies through Balcatta sand will stop dead in Sorrento cap rock. That means jackhammer work, slower progress and a higher price, and it is entirely reasonable for a quote to carry a provisional allowance for rock. What is not reasonable is discovering it halfway through and treating it as a variation nobody could have foreseen. Anyone who has worked in Sorrento, Hillarys, Marmion or Trigg knows what is under those streets. Asking what rate applies if rock is hit, before the job starts, keeps everyone honest.

Tree roots are the other site condition worth flagging before work starts. Established gums, figs and peppermints send roots through the top of the sand profile exactly where retic sits, and both trenching and long term pipe integrity are affected. Routing around a significant root zone protects the tree as well as the pipe, and where roots have already lifted paving or cracked a wall, the tree root removal page covers the options. Cutting major roots to lay a lateral can destabilise a mature tree, which is not a trade off worth making for a sprinkler line. Many Perth councils also protect significant trees, so the arborist question sometimes precedes the retic question.

Verge watering deserves its own thought because the rules are set street by street across the metropolitan area. Local governments across Perth set their own requirements for what may be planted and installed on a verge, and some require a permit for irrigation in the road reserve or prohibit fixed heads entirely. Since the verge is council land rather than yours, it is worth a phone call before running a station out there. The landscaping page covers verge planting more broadly.

Controllers and Programming

The controller is what turns a collection of pipes into a system that obeys the roster, and it is the component most often left on factory settings. Standard controllers from Hunter, Rain Bird, Toro and Holman all allow specific days of the week to be selected, which is exactly what a two day roster needs, and most also carry multiple programs so lawn and beds can run on different schedules. A budget controller set up properly beats an expensive one nobody configured. Ask the installer to walk you through the programming before they leave, and take a photo of the settings. Controllers get reset by a power outage more often than people expect, and a photo means you can restore the schedule in two minutes instead of calling someone out. Keep it somewhere you will find it again in three years.

Smart and Wi-Fi controllers have become common in Perth and they earn their price in a specific way. Seasonal adjustment scales every run time up or down by a percentage as the weather changes, so the same program that suits October is not still running in April, and the better units pull local weather data to do it automatically. The catch is that any controller with a weather feed must still be constrained to your roster days, because an automatic adjustment that adds a watering day breaks the rules. Check that the roster days are locked before the installer leaves.

Rain sensors and soil moisture sensors are cheap additions that prevent the most visible waste of all, a system running through a winter storm. A rain sensor interrupts the cycle when it has already rained, which matters most in May and September at either end of the sprinkler ban. They are simple to retrofit to almost any controller and usually cost less than a single solenoid replacement. Most Perth installers will fit one on request and some include it as standard.

Wiring is the quiet weak point in older systems. Retic solenoids run on 24 volt alternating current from a transformer, and the multicore cable that feeds them corrodes at the joints over time, particularly where a joiner sits buried in damp sand instead of a valve box. A station that will not switch on is as often a wiring fault as a failed solenoid, and a competent technician tests before replacing. Where a controller is being hardwired rather than plugged into a weatherproof outlet, that is electrical work for a licensed electrician, and Building and Energy regulates electrical work in Western Australia. Where a fault sits on the house side of the transformer rather than in the retic wiring, electrical fault finding is the right service to call.

Master valves and flow sensors belong on larger properties and on any system fed by a bore. A master valve holds the mains side of the system unpressurised between watering cycles, so a failed joiner leaks for minutes rather than for days, and a flow sensor can shut the system down when it detects the surge of a broken line. On a rural block or a large garden where a burst pipe might run unnoticed for a week, the pair pays for itself the first time something breaks. On a small suburban courtyard they are usually unnecessary, and the money is better spent on better heads or an extra station.

How an Install Runs

A proper retic installation follows a sequence and the first step happens before anyone digs. The installer measures the property, checks the available flow and pressure at the tap or the bore, counts the areas to be watered and groups them into stations, then works out whether the whole set can run inside the roster window. That design determines the number of stations, the head types and the pipe sizing, and it should be discussed with you before anyone digs. A quote produced from a drive past is not a design. Ask to see the station layout, even as a rough sketch on the back of the quote, because that sketch is what you will be comparing between contractors.

On site the work moves quickly once it starts. Trenches are cut with a trencher through sand or a jackhammer through limestone, mains and laterals are laid, valve boxes are set at accessible points rather than hidden in the middle of a bed, heads are installed and set to height, and the controller is mounted and wired. Most single storey suburban properties are done in one to three days depending on station count and ground conditions. Lawn areas will look rough for a couple of weeks and then recover.

Commissioning is the stage that separates a good install from a mediocre one, and you should be there for it. Every station is run in turn, heads are adjusted for arc and radius so water lands on garden rather than on the fence and the footpath, nozzles are swapped where coverage is uneven, and the programming is set to your roster days with realistic run times. A catch cup test, where small containers are set out across a lawn to measure how evenly water is landing, is the honest way to prove uniformity. Not every installer offers one, but the good ones will if asked. Ten minutes with a set of cups tells you more about a system than any brochure. It is also the fairest way to settle a disagreement about dry patches.

Timing the job around the season is worth thinking about. Installing in autumn means the system is ready and tested before the sprinkler ban begins, and an install during the ban period is permitted to be commissioned and tested but not run as normal watering. Spring is the busiest time for the trade in Perth, so lead times stretch from September onwards as everyone realises summer is coming. Booking in winter often means a better price and a faster start.

Retic almost never happens in isolation on a new garden, which affects the order of work. Pipes and sleeves must go in before turf, paving or edging, because retrofitting under a finished surface costs several times more. Where new lawn is being laid, the artificial turf installation page is worth reading if you are weighing synthetic against natural, since a synthetic lawn changes what the system needs to cover. Coordinating with whoever is doing the garden edging saves cutting through new pipework a week after it was laid.

The same logic applies to anything else that needs a trench. Soakwells, stormwater lines and retic all compete for the same strip of ground between the house and the boundary, and on a new build they are frequently dug by three different contractors in three different weeks. Agreeing the routes before the first machine arrives avoids one crew cutting through another's work, which is a surprisingly common and entirely avoidable cost. The stormwater drainage page explains how those runs are usually set out.

Expect a proper handover at the end of the job. A good installer leaves you with a station map showing what each number waters, the controller programmed for your roster days, spare nozzles and a note of the head models used, and a clear explanation of the winter shutdown. That paperwork is what lets any technician work on the system in five years without spending an hour guessing. Systems handed over without it cost more to service for the rest of their life.

Faults and Repairs

Most retic call outs in Perth come down to a short list of faults, and knowing them helps you describe the problem accurately when you ring. A station that will not come on is usually a solenoid, a wiring fault or a controller output. A station that will not switch off is usually a solenoid held open by grit. Heads that mist rather than spray indicate pressure that is too high, while heads that barely lift point to pressure or flow that is too low. Water pooling in one spot with a drop in pressure elsewhere means a broken lateral.

Sand is the enemy of every moving part in a Perth system. Grit works into solenoid diaphragms and holds them open, blocks nozzles and filters, and finds its way into pop up bodies so heads stop retracting and then get mown off. Bore systems suffer more than scheme systems because the water carries fine sand from the aquifer, which is why an inline filter on a bore fed system is a sound investment and not an upsell. Cleaning filters at the start of each season prevents a good share of the faults that lead to a call out.

Wiring faults deserve patience, since throwing parts at them rarely helps. A technician with a solenoid activator and a multimeter can tell within minutes whether the fault is at the controller, in the cable, at a joiner or in the solenoid coil, and that test costs far less than replacing components one at a time hoping to get lucky. Buried joiners are the usual culprit on systems more than ten years old, and the durable repair is a proper waterproof connector in a valve box, not tape in the sand. If a technician replaces three solenoids and the problem persists, the fault was never the solenoids. At that point ask for the wiring to be tested end to end before any more parts go on the invoice. A good technician will suggest it themselves.

Broken laterals happen for ordinary reasons and are usually cheap to fix. A garden fork, an edger, a post hole for a new fence, a tree root or simply an old pipe going brittle in the sun will all do it, and the repair is a section of pipe and two joiners once the break is located. Locating it is the time consuming part on a large garden, especially where no station map exists. Where a fence or retaining wall is going in, telling the contractor where the retic runs avoids the problem entirely, and the fence and gate installation page is worth reading before that work starts.

Winter shutdown and spring recommissioning are the two service visits that keep a system healthy. At the end of May the controller is switched to off rather than left running, the bore pump is isolated where relevant, and filters are cleaned. In late August the system is run station by station, heads are checked and adjusted, broken nozzles are replaced and the programming is set for the new season. Doing both properly costs a fraction of the repairs that follow from skipping them, and it is the single best value thing a WA household can do for its garden system.

Older systems eventually reach the point where repairing station by station stops making sense. Brittle pipe that cracks every time it is disturbed, obsolete heads that cannot be matched, a controller with failed outputs and a design that was never zoned properly will keep generating call outs indefinitely. At that point a replacement costs less over five years than the repairs, particularly as new heads and matched nozzles use noticeably less water for the same coverage. A technician who tells you honestly that a system is at the end of its life is doing you a favour. Getting a replacement quote alongside a repair quote lets you see the numbers side by side instead of taking that judgement on trust. Most contractors are happy to price both.

Licensing, Bores and Compliance

Reticulation itself is not a licensed trade in Western Australia, which surprises people, but several parts of a typical job are. Any connection to the scheme water supply, including the backflow prevention device, is plumbing work that must be carried out by a licensed plumber under the state plumbing regulations. Any fixed electrical work, such as hardwiring a controller or installing a power outlet for a bore pump, must be done by a licensed electrician. Building and Energy administers electrical and gas safety in WA and maintains the licence registers.

Backflow prevention exists to protect the drinking water network and it is not optional. Where a retic system is fed from scheme water, an approved device must be fitted and the installation must comply with AS/NZS 3500.1, which the Standards Australia catalogue covers. Testable devices require periodic testing by an accredited person, and the water utility keeps records of installed devices. On a bore fed system with no scheme connection at all the requirement does not arise, which is one reason bore systems are simpler to install.

Garden bores are regulated under the Rights in Water and Irrigation Act 1914, which is available through Western Australian Legislation. Requirements vary by area and by what the water is used for, so whether you need a licence to construct a bore, a licence to take water, or neither, depends on the address and the intended use. The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation is the agency to ask, and any competent bore driller will raise the question before quoting. Do not rely on what applied at a previous property, since the rules differ between groundwater areas. The answer also affects resale, because an unregistered bore can surface as an issue during a property transaction.

Contaminated sites are a genuine consideration in a few Perth areas and worth checking before sinking a bore. Where groundwater has been affected by historical land use, local government or the state may advise against using bore water on edible gardens or for anything other than lawn. The Department of Health publishes guidance on private water supplies, and testing is inexpensive relative to the cost of a bore. This matters most on older industrial fringe suburbs and near former landfill sites.

Consumer protections apply to retic work as they do to any trade service. The Australian Consumer Law provides guarantees that services will be carried out with due care and skill and that goods will be fit for purpose, overseen by the ACCC and, in this state, by the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. Get the quote and the scope in writing, keep the invoice and the station map, and be aware that a workmanship warranty from the installer is separate from the manufacturer warranty on heads, valves and controllers. Ask how long each one runs, and get both in writing. Twelve months on labour and one to five years on parts is the common arrangement, though it varies by brand and by contractor.

Water Corporation runs Waterwise programs that are genuinely useful when choosing a contractor. Waterwise Garden Irrigators and Waterwise Reticulation Specialists have completed training in efficient system design and the WA watering rules, and the utility maintains a public list of them. Using one is not compulsory and plenty of excellent installers are not on the list, but it is a reasonable shortcut when you have no personal recommendation. It also tends to indicate a contractor who will program your controller to the roster instead of leaving it on the default.

Costs in Detail

A repair call out in the Perth metropolitan area typically runs $120 to $260, which covers the visit and the first period on site, with parts and additional labour on top. Most technicians will diagnose and fix a straightforward solenoid or nozzle problem inside that first visit. Regional call outs carry travel, so a job in the Wheatbelt, the South West or the Goldfields is priced differently and often bundled with other work in the area. Ask what the call out covers before booking. Some contractors waive it if the repair proceeds, others do not, and it is easier to establish on the phone than on the driveway.

Common parts and small jobs sit in predictable ranges. A solenoid replaced runs $160 to $340 fitted, a pop up spray head $35 to $95 each, a rotor $65 to $150, and a broken lateral repair $140 to $380 depending on how long it takes to locate. A controller supplied and fitted runs $280 to $850, with basic six station units at the bottom and Wi-Fi capable models with seasonal adjustment at the top. A rain sensor added at the same time is usually $90 to $220, which is modest against what it saves over a few shoulder seasons.

New installations are priced per station, and $650 to $1,400 a station covers most suburban work in 2026. The spread reflects head type, trenching conditions and the distance from the water source, with rotor stations on open lawn at the lower end and drip zones through established beds at the upper end. A typical four bedroom Perth property with front lawn, back lawn and garden beds runs six to ten stations, which puts a full front and back installation at roughly $4,800 to $12,500. Limestone excavation can add significantly and should appear as a separate provisional item. Long runs from the source to a rear garden also add, since mains pipe and trenching are charged by the metre. On a deep block that run alone can be thirty metres.

Bore related work is a separate budget entirely. A replacement pump and pressure tank installed commonly runs $1,900 to $4,600 depending on depth, flow requirement and whether the existing wiring and slab can be reused. Sinking a new bore is considerably more and depends on depth to water and ground conditions, which vary across the metropolitan area, so it is quoted per site after a driller assesses the address. Iron filtration adds further cost and is worth pricing against the cost of cleaning stained paving every couple of years.

Servicing is the cheapest money on this page. A winter shutdown and spring recommissioning package typically costs $140 to $320 combined, covering the controller, filters, heads, adjustment and programming for the new season. Households that skip it tend to open the season with three or four faults at once in the busiest month of the year, when lead times are longest. Booking the spring service in July rather than October gets a better date and a calmer technician. Several contractors offer a set price package covering both visits, which is usually cheaper than booking them separately.

Regional pricing follows distance more than anything else. Contractors servicing Bunbury, Busselton, Albany, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie generally price competitively within their own areas, while a job well outside a service base attracts travel and sometimes a minimum charge that makes small repairs uneconomic on their own. Grouping several jobs into one visit is the standard workaround in regional WA. It is worth asking whether a contractor is already working in your area that week. Neighbours booking together is common practice in regional WA and often gets everyone a better rate. It also shortens the wait considerably in the spring peak.

What to Look Out For

Be cautious of any quote that does not mention the roster. A Perth system has to deliver a week of water in two pre-dawn windows, and an installer who has not asked your house number or counted the stations against the available time has not designed anything. That conversation takes two minutes and it is the clearest signal that someone works here regularly. Its absence usually means a general garden watering system has been installed in place of a WA retic system. The distinction sounds pedantic until the first February, when the difference between the two is visible from the street.

Watch for spray heads and rotors sharing a station. The two apply water at completely different rates, so a station running long enough to satisfy the rotors will flood everything the sprays cover, and a station short enough for the sprays leaves the rotor areas dry. It is the most common design fault on older Perth systems and it is expensive to correct afterwards because it means re-plumbing the zone. On a new install there is no excuse for it.

Be careful about backflow prevention on scheme water connections. It is a legal requirement rather than an optional extra, the connection is licensed plumbing work, and a landscaper who offers to tee into the mains themselves is doing something they are not licensed to do. Ask who is making the connection and whether they hold a plumbing licence. The same applies to anyone offering to hardwire a controller or wire up a bore pump without an electrical licence. Both licences can be checked online in a minute, and a legitimate contractor will give you the number without hesitating.

Look closely at where valve boxes end up. Boxes buried under mulch in the middle of a garden bed, or set below the finished level so they fill with sand, turn every future repair into an excavation. They should sit flush, in accessible positions, with the lids clear and the wiring joined inside them, never loose in the ground. This is a five minute decision at install that saves hours over the following decade. Photograph the box positions before the mulch goes back on, because they disappear from memory surprisingly fast.

Treat with suspicion any diagnosis that replaces parts without testing first. Solenoids, controllers and heads are all cheap enough that swapping them is tempting, but a wiring fault or a pressure problem will survive every one of those replacements and the invoice adds up quickly. A technician who arrives with a multimeter and a solenoid activator is going to find the actual fault. One who arrives with a box of solenoids may be planning to use them.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Start by gathering the facts an installer will ask for. Your house number, so they can work out your roster days, whether you are on bore or scheme water, roughly how many stations you have now, the approximate lawn and bed areas, and whether you know of any limestone on the block. If you have a station map or an old invoice, dig it out. Contractors quoting from a clear description price the actual job and stop padding for uncertainty.

Then ask every contractor the same set of questions. How many stations they propose and why, how the stations are grouped, which head types go where, what pipe and fittings they use, how they will handle limestone if they hit it, who makes the scheme water connection and whether they hold the licence, what controller they are fitting and whether it will be programmed to your roster, whether a rain sensor is included, what the warranty covers on parts and on labour, and what a service visit costs afterwards.

Compare the designs before the totals. A quote with four stations will always beat one with eight on price, but if the four station design cannot cover the garden inside the roster window it is not cheaper, it is inadequate. Ask each installer to explain why their station count is what it is. The one who can answer that clearly is usually the one to go with, even if they are not the lowest number on the page. Retic is a trade where the thinking happens before the digging, and the quote is where that thinking shows.

Get the handover in writing when the job is done. That means the station map, the controller settings, the head and nozzle models, the pipe sizes, the location of valve boxes and the master valve if fitted, and the warranty terms. Photograph the trenches before they are backfilled, because a picture of where the pipe actually runs is worth a great deal the next time a fence post goes in. Store it all together with the invoice, ideally as photos on your phone, since paper in a drawer goes missing. It also saves the next owner from digging blind, which is worth more than it sounds when a system is fifteen years old.

A system designed for the WA rules, zoned sensibly and serviced twice a year will keep a Perth garden alive on two watering days without anyone thinking about it. What decides that is the design work done before the trencher arrives, not the brand on the sprinkler heads. Spending an extra half hour on that conversation is the most useful thing a household can do before signing anything.