Find your two days: the full digit table
Take the last digit of your street number. If there is no street number, use the lot number. If the property spans a range like 22-24, use the higher one. Unit and villa numbers are ignored entirely. That digit gives you two fixed days a week, and it is the same two days for everyone in Perth and Mandurah carrying that digit, on scheme water or on a garden bore.
| Last digit of house number | Your two sprinkler days |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wednesday and Saturday |
| 2 | Thursday and Sunday |
| 3 | Friday and Monday |
| 4 | Saturday and Tuesday |
| 5 | Sunday and Wednesday |
| 6 | Monday and Thursday |
| 7 | Tuesday and Friday |
| 8 | Wednesday and Saturday |
| 9 | Thursday and Sunday |
| 0 | Friday and Monday |
Source: Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, "Check garden bore water restrictions" (page states "Last updated: 21 May 2026"), Perth and Mandurah (Area 3) roster table. Cross-checked against Water Corporation's own "Check your watering days" tool across nine Perth postcodes. The two sources agree exactly. Water Corporation's tool reports the pair without an order, so ignore any suggestion of a first or second day.
The timing rule sits alongside the day rule and is easy to forget. DWER states it as: "You may use your sprinklers once per day on your allocated days, either before 9 am or after 6 pm." Once, on one of your two days, and never in the middle of the day. Three conditions, all of them enforceable.
The Sprinkler Switch-off: 1 June to 31 August, every year
From the start of June to the end of August, the roster becomes irrelevant because sprinklers stop altogether. Water Corporation's wording: "The Sprinkler Switch-off runs from 1 June until 31 August every year. Both businesses and households are included." It is not a drought response and it is not reviewed each season. The same page records that it "has been a permanent water saving initiative since 2010".
The penalty is stated identically by both agencies. Water Corporation: "Anyone in the Sprinkler Switch-off area spotted using their sprinklers between 1 June and 31 August risks a $100 fine. Our inspectors are out 7 days a week and all complaints are investigated." DWER: "Anyone found using sprinklers between 9am and 6pm, during the Sprinkler switch off, or outside their rostered days can be fined $100."
What the Switch-off does not do. It does not stop you watering. It stops you using a sprinkler system to do it. Water Corporation's hand watering page says a watering can or hand-held garden hose may be used "on any day of the week", and recommends, without making it a rule, keeping to before 9am or after 6pm. There are a handful of carve-outs written into the Switch-off itself: active sporting locations such as school and local government ovals, irrigation systems fed by rainwater tanks, bore maintenance testing, and new lawns and gardens where an exemption has been granted.
There is a neat irony in the timing that is worth knowing if you are weighing up a lawn. The Switch-off lands squarely on Perth's three wettest months. At Perth Airport, the Bureau of Meteorology's long-run monthly means put June, July and August at 426.9 mm between them, about 56.6% of the 754.9 mm annual mean. The two-day roster, meanwhile, governs the dry half of the year, when the same station averages 28.7 days at or above 35°C and 4.5 days at or above 40°C. Perth bans sprinklers when it rains and rations them when it does not.
New lawn is not automatically exempt, and the clock is short
This is the part of the system that quietly changes the maths between a natural lawn and a synthetic one, and most people only discover it after the pallet of turf has already arrived.
Laying new roll-on lawn, runners, shredded lawn or seed does not entitle you to water it in. You have to apply for a watering exemption. Water Corporation: "Watering more often to establish a new lawn or garden without a watering exemption is considered a sprinkler breach and can result in an infringement." Both manual and automatic irrigation qualify, and bore owners on an unlicensed domestic garden bore can apply too. Licensed bores are handled by DWER instead.
Apply on the day the lawn goes in. Water Corporation is blunt about why: "Watering exemptions commence on the day the lawn or garden is installed. Only apply for a water exemption on the day your lawn or garden is installed, this ensures that you get the full length of the exemption." Apply late and you get whatever is left of the window, not a fresh one.
How long you get
- Granted 1 October to 31 March: up to 42 days from the day of planting, with a recommended 10mm of water a day.
- Granted 1 April to 30 September: up to 35 days from the day of planting, with a recommended 7.5mm a day.
Then it ends. "All exemptions cease after the approved exemption period calculated from the date your new lawn and/or garden was installed. Normal watering rosters apply after this date. At the end of the exemption period the settings on your irrigation controller must be amended according to the sprinkler roster for your area."
Two costs ride along with the exemption. The first is on your bill: "you will be charged for the extra water you use with a watering exemption. The additional water use will result in a higher water bill and will impact the water usage for your billing year, not just the billing period." The second is the risk of getting the conditions wrong, which Water Corporation prices at "a fine up to $500" and pins on the property owner, "not the person who installed the lawn, plants or sprinkler system". Whether the $100 and the $500 can both be applied to one incident is not stated on any page we found, and we are not going to guess.
Set that against a synthetic lawn. There is no application, no 42-day countdown, no controller reprogramming in week seven, no extra water charge, and nothing to switch off in June. That is the honest comparison, and it is a process comparison rather than a price one. For what the install itself costs, see Perth turf prices per square metre.
Bores: the myth worth killing
Garden bores are common across Perth, and the folk assumption is that a bore puts you outside the rules. In Perth it does not. DWER's own explanation of the 2022 change: "On 1 September 2022, the domestic garden bore sprinkler roster has changed to align with the two-days-per-week sprinkler roster for scheme water users in Perth and Mandurah, reducing from three days per week. Alignment of the domestic garden bore and scheme water rosters will save up to 30 GL per year of groundwater, which will help to slow or reverse our declining groundwater levels."
The Switch-off applies to bore users too. DWER: "A Sprinkler switch off applies from 1 June to 31 August each year." What changes is enforcement. Water Corporation inspectors do the looking, but "If our inspectors see a bore user not following the roster, we pass it on to Department of Water and Environmental Regulation. The department may issue an infringement." The legal instrument behind bore restrictions is the Water Agencies (Water Use) By-laws 2010, made under the Water Agencies (Powers) Act 1984.
One genuine bore carve-out exists and it is narrow: reticulation may be run "to the minimum extent necessary while the system is being installed, maintained, tested or repaired", which DWER deems to be "no more than two minutes per station". That is a testing allowance, not a watering allowance. If a bore feeds the retic you are capping during a turf install, tell your installer, because the plumbing and the isolation points differ from a scheme-water setup. Our page on how a Perth turf installation is built covers what capping involves.
What the rules do and do not reach
Three boundaries are worth drawing clearly, because getting them wrong is how a page becomes misinformation.
- These are watering rules, not turf rules. Nothing in Water Corporation's or DWER's published material addresses artificial turf in either direction. Do not read the silence as approval or as a loophole; it is simply outside the scope of the by-laws.
- Councils do not set watering days. We looked for a local government watering rule for all ten of our Perth suburbs and found none. Anyone telling you to "check with your council about watering days" has the system backwards. Councils do have a say about your verge, which is an entirely separate question.
- There is no turf rebate in WA. The only Perth garden rebate on Water Corporation's offers page requires an existing, working irrigation system, and is currently shown as closed. Treat any page hinting at a synthetic-turf rebate as wrong.
If the water rules are what pushed you toward looking at synthetic grass in the first place, the next question is usually what the ground under it is going to cost you, and in Perth that varies more than the turf does. Start with what laying artificial grass involves and what it costs, then check the quality checklist in how to judge a turf sample yourself.
Sprinkler roster questions Perth households actually ask
Does my suburb or my council decide my watering days?
Neither. The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation states it in one line: "Sprinkler roster days are based on the last digit of your house number. If you have no house number, use the lot number instead." We checked this the hard way, running Water Corporation's own watering-days tool across nine Perth postcodes for street numbers 1 to 10, and every postcode returned the same answer set. Local governments in WA do not set residential watering rules; they are made by regulation administered by DWER and enforced by Water Corporation.
I live in a unit. Which number do I use?
The street number, not your unit number. Water Corporation says so directly: "if you live at Unit 1, 22 Water Street, you should use 22 in the watering days search." If the property spans a range such as 22-24, use the higher number. If there is genuinely no street number, use the lot number, and swap to the street number once one is allocated.
Can I water at all between 1 June and 31 August?
Yes, just not with sprinklers. This is the single most misreported fact about Perth water rules. The Sprinkler Switch-off is a sprinkler measure, and Water Corporation's hand watering advice page says you can use "a watering can or hand-held garden hose if your plants are looking a little thirsty on any day of the week", with a recommendation (not a rule) to do it before 9am or after 6pm. What is banned is running your reticulation. Note that we could not find a Water Corporation or DWER page that spells out the winter hand-watering position in those exact terms, so we are quoting what each page does say rather than paraphrasing them into one sentence.
Does a garden bore get me out of the roster?
Not in Perth. DWER records that "On 1 September 2022, the domestic garden bore sprinkler roster has changed to align with the two-days-per-week sprinkler roster for scheme water users in Perth and Mandurah, reducing from three days per week." Bore users also sit inside the Sprinkler Switch-off. The one thing that changes is who fines you: Water Corporation refers bore breaches to DWER, which issues the infringement. Rules genuinely do differ for bore users outside Perth and Mandurah, but none of our suburbs is in those areas.
I am laying new roll-on lawn. Am I automatically allowed to water it in?
No, and this trips up a lot of households. You have to apply for a watering exemption, and Water Corporation is explicit that "Watering more often to establish a new lawn or garden without a watering exemption is considered a sprinkler breach and can result in an infringement." Apply on the day the lawn goes down, because the clock starts from the installation date whether you applied that day or not.
How long does the new-lawn exemption run for?
It depends on the half of the year. Granted between 1 October and 31 March, you can water for up to 42 days from the day of planting. Granted between 1 April and 30 September, up to 35 days. After that, Water Corporation says plainly that "Normal watering rosters apply after this date" and that your controller settings must be changed back. There is a second sting: breaching the conditions of a granted exemption risks a fine of up to $500, separate from the $100 roster fine, and it falls on the property owner rather than the person who laid the lawn.
Will a broken retic controller get me off a fine?
Water Corporation says no: "Instances of sprinklers that are used outside of the allocated watering days and times, as witnessed by our inspectors, will attract an infringement." Inspectors are described as being out seven days a week, with all complaints investigated. If your controller has been running the lawn zone on the wrong day since the last power cut, that is your problem to find before somebody else does.
Does any of this apply to artificial turf?
No, and it is worth saying why rather than just claiming a win. We searched Water Corporation's watering, restriction, exemption, breach and rebate pages and DWER's restrictions page, and artificial turf is not mentioned anywhere in them. The rules regulate watering a lawn or garden. A synthetic lawn is not watered to survive, so there is no roster day to remember, no exemption to apply for, and nothing to switch off on 1 June. That is an absence of regulation, not an endorsement.
Is there a rebate for pulling out my lawn?
No. Water Corporation's Perth and Peel offers are a Waterwise Toilet Rebate and a Waterwise Irrigation Rebate. The irrigation one is currently shown as closed, covers leak and solenoid repairs, and requires that you "Have an existing irrigation system which has watered your garden within the last 2 years". Read that carefully: the only Perth garden rebate rewards keeping your retic, not removing it. No Australian council, utility or state government pays for turf replacement.
How much rain does Perth actually get in summer?
Less than the averages suggest. At Perth Airport the Bureau of Meteorology's long-run mean annual rainfall is 754.9 mm, of which June, July and August account for 426.9 mm, about 56.6% of the year. Summer is close to dry: the median (decile 5) January rainfall at Perth Airport is 1.8 mm, and at Perth Metro 2.4 mm. Medians are the honest figure here, because the summer means are lifted by rare thunderstorms that most Januaries never see.
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