A Dumpster Can Crack Your Sprinkler Heads Before the Roof Is Done

Most roofing crews rent a dumpster and set it at the edge of the driveway or on the front lawn, where it can sit for a week or longer. The delivery truck swings wide, the container settles into the grass, and the loaded bundles of old shingles go in heavy. The parts of a yard that usually take the hit are the sprinkler heads, the lawn valves, and the wire run back to the irrigation controller. Many St. Louis yards have underground irrigation, so a cracked head is a common surprise on the day the container leaves.

Where the dumpster will sit

Ask the crew lead to show you on the lot where the container will go before it is delivered. A written scope should name the dumpster location, the side of the house the trucks will use, and whether the crew will lay plywood or mats over the lawn. If the scope says only that a dumpster is included, the placement is still open, and you will learn where it goes when the driver backs in.

Walk the spot with your phone before anything arrives. Note where each sprinkler head sits, which beds have lights or low wiring, and where the edge of the driveway meets the grass. Many homeowners find a head they did not know was there only after the container is in place. If you have flags, put one on each head inside the footprint and on the two heads at either side.

Turn the zones off before delivery

Most controllers can pause a single zone or the whole system. Turning off the zones that cover the dumpster footprint, and the zones beside the truck route, keeps a head from spraying into the work area and gives you a clean record of what was working before the job began. Leave a note on the controller so nobody restarts the schedule while the roof is open.

Check the backflow preventer and the main shutoff too. They are often near the foundation or the side yard, and a truck or a pallet of bundles parked over them can crack the fittings. If the shutoff is buried under landscape stone or a dense bed, ask the crew to route the trucks around it.

What the scope should name

• The dumpster location, marked on a site sketch or on a photo of the lawn.
• The side of the house where the trucks will enter and leave, and the turning path on the driveway.
• Whether the crew will protect the lawn with mats or plywood, and who lays and removes them.
• Who marks the irrigation heads, who turns the zones off, and who turns them back on.
• Who repairs a damaged head, the price of a replacement, and how soon the repair will be made.
• Whether the roofing company carries general liability insurance that covers property its crew damages, with a certificate you can read.

Who pays for a broken head

Damage a roofing crew causes to your landscaping is a question of who was careless and which insurance policy responds. Your own homeowners policy may or may not respond to damage you did not cause on purpose, and the answer depends on your policy wording and your agent's reading of it. The roofing company's general liability policy is the other place this lands, and that is why the certificate matters. Ask for it in writing, check the policy dates against the job dates, and check that the named insured is the company you signed with.

Missouri law (RSMo 407.725) bars a roofing contractor from representing a homeowner in an insurance claim, and from saying anything about paying, waiving or covering a deductible. That means Keys will not argue a sprinkler loss with your insurer for you, and the roofer should not tell you what your insurer will decide. What Keys can do is document the lawn and the irrigation layout before work starts, keep the photos and measurements, and put a written scope in your hands that shows the dumpster location and the protection plan. Your own insurer deals with your policy, and the Keys office at (314) 220-2333 can answer questions about the scope itself.

Questions for the crew lead

1. Where will the dumpster sit, and on what day will it be delivered and picked up?
2. Will you pull the sprinkler heads for protection, or leave them in place and work around them?
3. Who will call me if a head breaks during the job, and how fast will they come out?
4. Is lawn protection included in the price, or is it a separate line?
5. Will the liability certificate be sent to me directly, and which policy dates does it show?

Photograph the lawn before the first truck

Take a slow video along the driveway edge, the front beds, the side yard, and the back fence line. Hold the camera low so the sprinkler heads show clearly against the turf. Include one clear shot of the irrigation controller with the zone names visible, since that label list is the record of what you had before the job began. Keep the original files with their timestamps and copy them to a second place.

Ask the crew to photograph the lawn on their side too. A shared set of pictures taken on the first morning makes any later disagreement about the grass much easier to sort out. If something breaks, the before pictures and the written scope are the two documents you will want together in one folder.

Check every zone after the dumpster leaves

Turn each zone back on once the container is gone, one at a time, and watch every head for a full cycle. A head that sprays at an odd angle, a head that will not pop up, and a head that leaks around the riser are the usual signs of a break. Look at the valve boxes too, since a cracked valve can drain a zone without showing any surface water at first.

Fix small breaks before the first hard freeze. In St. Louis, a line that still holds water can freeze in a cold snap and split a fitting that looked sound in the fall. If the system is not blown out before winter, ask your irrigation company to do it, and keep the invoice with the photos and the written scope. Those three papers together show what was working on the day the roof crew arrived.