Fully agree. A week over 30 degrees and the grass is cooked. Moving sprinklers is a pain in the arse...
It isn't too bad cost wise if you do it yourself. I'm lucky though having a bore there is awesome pressure so don't need half a dozen stations.
Our old place had a bore, submersible pump, clean and non smelling. Bores rock.
I had irrigation in my lawn before I ripped it all out and started fresh and returfed (see page 1). I'm one of the few that gets massive enjoyment and relaxation from watering. I don't use sprinklers. I hand water. I can be VERY picky and precise with how much water every part of the lawn gets. If a patch needs more, it gets more, etc.
I'm going to re-turf the front lawn next week (Santa Anna Couch this time). Same again with the hand watering. Although I'm leaving the irrigation in this time simply because it's much more effort to remove.
I don't mind a bit of hand watering. Agree, it can be theraputic with the hose in one hand and a beer in the other but I hate it being a must do or the lawn is dead scenario.
Our new place has retic, it's just that it wasn't/isn't in the best state of repair. Issues include,
All stations disconnected at the controller
When connected, none fire due to all the wires being cut between the controller and the valves.
Out of 5 stations, 3 valves work manually. The other two do nothing.
There is cut/damaged pipe everywhere.
Probably 90% of the spray heads or risers being taken off so when I get a station working water just bubbles up from the gorund like those mud fields in NZ.
I got the back lawn working, along with a small section of verge. The remainder of the verge, the front lawn and the garden beds all need hand watering until I pull my finger out and start tracing pipes to locate damaged points to repair, re-wire the valve/controller connection and probably replace all of the valves. At least they are all in one spot rather than being randomly placed around the garden.