Last updated · Lake Nona, FL

Irrigation installation in Lake Nona (32827) usually means fixing what the builder left, not starting from bare dirt. Lake Nona is a large planned community inside Orlando’s city limits, southeast of the airport, around Medical City, Laureate Park, and the town center. Most homes are recent, most came with a basic sprinkler system, and many yards are small enough that a sloppy layout soaks the stucco and the neighbor’s driveway. This guide covers the questions specific to Lake Nona lots. Call (407) 674-2841.

First: what’s feeding your sprinklers?

Before anything is designed, find out what kind of water the system runs on.

  • Reclaimed water. Many newer southeast Orlando subdivisions have a separate reclaimed irrigation line. Look for purple pipe, purple valve-box lids, or purple tags. Reclaimed systems need their own backflow and cross-connection rules, and a new system can’t be tied into a potable line by mistake.
  • Potable (drinking) water. The system connects after the meter and needs a backflow preventer.
  • Well. Less common on new-build lots, but it adds a pump and pressure tank to the design.

Your utility bill, plus a look under a couple of valve-box lids, usually answers the question.

Watering rules: read your own utility’s page

Lake Nona is in southeast Orange County, near the boundary between the St. Johns River and South Florida water management districts, and the rules differ by supply type. Under the St. Johns district’s rule, for example, residential watering drops from two days a week to one day when the clocks fall back. Don’t program off a schedule you saw on an Osceola County page. Use the days and hours your utility posts for your address, and expect potable and reclaimed to differ.

Whatever the days are, no watering between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. is the common baseline, and a working rain sensor is required by Florida law on automatic systems.

What Lake Nona builder systems usually get wrong

These come up on new-build lots all over southeast Orlando:

  • Heads set before final grade that now sit low, tilt, or end up buried after sod settles.
  • Rotors and sprays on the same valve. They put down water at very different rates, so one area floods while the other stays dry.
  • Too few zones for the shade side of a two-story house versus the full-sun front.
  • Overspray onto pavers, garage doors, and stucco on 40- to 50-foot-wide lots.
  • Unlabeled controllers with one generic program for every zone.

A rezone fixes most of this: keep the main line if it’s sound, split rotors from sprays, add a zone for shade, swap in matched nozzles, and put foundation beds on drip.

HOA and lot-line details

Lake Nona neighborhoods run on design guidelines. Before trenching:

  • Get written HOA approval for any change to the front landscape, a new exterior controller, or work near common areas.
  • Keep arcs inside your lot line. Common-area turf and ponds are usually maintained by the association.
  • Call 811 for utility locates. New communities have a lot of shallow fiber and electric in the easements.

Cost

The site’s irrigation installation cost guide puts most quarter-acre systems at $2,500–$5,500 installed, priced at about $500–$900 per zone. Small lots start near $1,800. Large or bed-heavy lots can reach $9,000.

On Lake Nona lots, the total moves with:

  • Rezone vs. replace. Reusing a good main line saves money.
  • Drip conversions for foundation and palm beds.
  • Smart controller with seasonal adjust (and app control if you travel).
  • Reclaimed or potable tie-in and the backflow device that goes with it.

Ask for each zone, head count, valve, and controller on its own line, with a zone map.

Before you call it done

  • Every zone run in daylight and checked for overspray on stucco, pavers, and the street.
  • Rain sensor tested; controller set to your utility’s current days.
  • Zone map at the controller, with station names that match the map.

Planning sod or a replacement lawn next? See sod installation in Lake Nona and HOA sod in Lake Nona. Wet corners after storms are a grading question. See drainage solutions in Lake Nona.

Quick answer

Irrigation installation in Lake Nona is usually a rezone of a builder system: split rotors from sprays, add shade zones, put beds on drip, keep spray off stucco and pavers. Confirm whether the lines are reclaimed or potable and follow your own utility’s days. Most systems land at $2,500–$5,500 installed, or about $500–$900 per zone. Call (407) 674-2841.

When to call

Call (407) 674-2841 with your 32827 address, whether the lids are purple (reclaimed), the lot size, and whether you have HOA approval yet. Photos of the controller and a couple of zones running help. Send a question.

County-wide guide: irrigation installation