Sprinklers – Toxic to Signs!

When a sign person hears the word “SPRINKLERS” from his or her client it’s like telling Han Solo that he’s flying into the Death Star, the big booming sound of “Boom Boom Boom, Boom Ba Boom, Boom Ba Boom” starts radiating from the inside of our heads. Sprinklers are the arch enemy of monument signs because they are typically just producing nasty “hard water” with tons of minerals that will wear the paint and finish off a monument sign, 10 times faster than just typical rain. The client usually has no idea that a war is taking place right on their front lawn, the mighty monument sign is being hammered every morning without fail from the sprinkler water wearing it away day by day.

So, the Solution: Slap your Landscaper in the Mouth!

No….. don’t do that, most landscapers are ignorant that they are doing anything wrong, and most landscapers are nice guys anyway. So the real solution is to walk the sign locations and plot out the sprinkler head locations near the sign and make sure they are 1/2″ Radius or 1/4″ radius sprinkler heads that shoot AWAY from the sign and not on the sign. Just keeping sprinkler water away from a sign, with proper maintenance, will allow a sign to last 10, 15 maybe even 20 years, but sprinkler water can destroy a sign in 2 to 5 years if left unattended.