An irrigation system is the most common backflow connection on a residential property, and it is the reason most homeowners have an assembly at all.
The risk is not the water you put into the system. It is what the system is sitting in. Sprinkler heads sit at ground level in soil that has been fertilized, sprayed, walked on by animals and soaked by whatever ran across it. Valve boxes hold standing water. A cracked lateral pulls in whatever is around it. When pressure drops in the main, all of that has somewhere to go.
Most irrigation systems can only backflow by suction rather than pressure, which is why vacuum breakers are common on them — and why the assembly has to sit above the highest head on the property to work at all. Systems with a booster pump are a different case, because a pump can push.
This is the connection we work on most. Irrigation assemblies sit outside the foundation, so we handle them end to end — test, repair, replace and install. The test is done in the spring with the system charged, which makes it the same trip as your startup.
Which assembly your provider will accept depends on their cross-connection control program and the code in force where you are. The seven device types we see on the Western Slope.
Schedule a backflow test or call 970-835-9661