Sprinkler blowouts in Missoula & the Bitterroot Valley

Aim for late September to mid-October. The trigger is the first sustained hard freeze, which in the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys typically arrives in early-to-mid October but can come earlier at elevation or in a cold year. Booking in September gives you room to schedule; waiting until the forecast shows a freeze means competing with everyone else who waited.

Only if your system was installed with manual drain valves at every low point, and most in this area were not. Gravity draining leaves water trapped in laterals that do not slope, in the heads themselves, and in the backflow assembly. Compressed air is what clears those. If you are unsure what your system has, we can tell you during the appointment.

Sometimes nothing — a mild fall and a shallow system can get away with it. More often you find out in spring: cracked laterals that soak one part of the lawn, broken heads that will not pop up, or a split backflow preventer, which is the costliest of the three because it is brass and it is code-required equipment. The repair almost always exceeds the cost of the blowout you skipped.

Yes. Drip and micro-spray zones need slightly different handling — lower air pressure, and filters and emitters that should be cleared and left open — but they freeze just as readily as spray zones. Tell us which zones are drip when you book so we allow the right time.

A typical residential system with six to ten zones takes roughly thirty to sixty minutes. Larger properties, multiple controllers, or systems with a lot of drip take longer. We will give you a realistic window when you schedule.