City told the customer that her backflow is leaking and it has to be replaced, posthaste, or they will lock her meter and fine her. Should be easy-peasy once I get the concrete out the way. 🤦🏻‍♂️

started messing with the sprinkler system after living here for 3 years because wife wants a yard like her retired dad. this is part of zone 3 out of 6. zone 4 has same issue (flooding yard in the spot i suspect there’s another busted pipe) but i haven’t dug that one up yet. cheers for midweek beers this lawd daddy stuff is actually fun 🍻

there is also a head under the middle of my deck in the backyard if anyone needed and extra laugh at my situation 😂

I keep looking at them but can’t tell if they’re genuinely useful or just another smart-home gadget. Did you notice much difference in your watering or water bill?

Hi all,

Homeowner who has maintained his own irrigation system for about 15 years. Unfortunately I live in an area of PA where there is no one within a 2-hour drive who does irrigation and no one beyond that distance who is interested in coming this far. So I've gotten pretty good at rotor replacements, replacing/rebuilding valves, coupling damaged laterals, and I even do my own winterizations with a rented 185 cfm compressor each year. Not claiming to be an expert, but I've done what I've needed to keep the system going. System is entirely poly from the main valve onward.

This past spring one of the utilities came through and did a fiber optic install. For better or worse, I have about 6 rotors in the 15' utility easement by the road, as well as the laterals and flex lines passing through that area. Ultimately there was no issue because they did a deep directional bore across the property and didn't hit anything. I was able to speak with the foreman beforehand.

Much to my surprise, another utility is coming through to install fiber option again. Not a great time - October in PA - system is already blown out and any damage to either irrigation or turf won't be fixable until the spring. This company is supposed to be pulling through existing conduit, but they claim a lot of the conduit doesn't exist or has failed after two decades. They are bringing in a bunch of crews to knock out the installation before the winter. Sounds like they might use vibratory plows to install, which is certain to shred poly piping. Sounds also like they are rushing to get through it.

Looking for any advice as to how I can ensure they minimize damage and how I can easily repair what they do damage in the spring. I'm guessing since it's an easement, I just need to let it happen and deal with any impacts on my own. I've already flagged the heads, but I don't really know how the laterals/flex lines run.

Thanks!

🙆🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️😆

How can I connect 2 x sprinklers to create a dasiy chain, the items are advertised as allowing this function but I'm sure I will need a specific attachment to allow the sprinklers to daisy chain?

Any help is appreciated.

Anybody have any guesses on what’s causing the pressure to cycle like that?

This valve has failed and I'm trying to identify the manufacturer and model number. In the past, I purchased the entire valve and replaced the top. In this case I can't find the valve. It's different than the others in my yard.

What is this that is leaking water and is it something I can DIY replace? My sprinkler system is off at the control box, so surprised it is leaking water to be honest

Attempting to winterize my home irrigation system myself rather than spent the $500 for a yearly contract. I’ve done it in the past with no issues, however the new system that was installed a year ago (which included a complementary year of service) seems to not be as straight forward.

I’ve closed the first valve so the hose will still work if needed for now, and have tried opening either of the valves to shoot my air compressor through to clear the lines of any water. Yes, have gone through zone by zone to clear the lines before myself.

Problem being that when I am using the air compressor all my air is just coming out of the vacuum breaker rather than going down the line. What is the solve?

We blow out our sprinklers every year and have never had this problem before. We blew out 7 of our 13 zones and then the heads stopped popping up and air is coming out of the PVB. We have a pretty big air compressor. Using 30-45 PSI, tried increasing it but did not change anything. Not sure what else to try.

Customer had 'some guy the neighborhood recommended' install a replacement PVB. She luckily had a master valve before it (even if that should've been an iso), so when it popped, it wasn't a constant leak, but all her run times were 30 minutes and she only called us after her lawn died, so it probably was why her water bill was so high. I used the same PVB for replacement after inspecting it for any issues, just replacing the PVC/legs (all the way down to ground for good measure), but that's not exactly the right glue for PVC lol. Please don't use CPVC glue on PVC, especially not on the backflow preventer!

TLDR: I think the fix is to just strip and rewire the colors to communication wire but am not sure on the combination.

Just last week, my automated sprinkler system stopped working on all zones after a heavy day of rain.

So far I know that:

• The actual electronic sprinkler system has power and does work (Orbit) and has retained all my setting start times, run times, and the schedule.
• All wires for all stations are connected properly into the terminal and are secure.
• All sprinkler stations work when turned on manually at the solenoid.
• Rain sensor was turned on when I first checked. The photo shows it in off and the system still doesn't respond (with shine or rain)
• The main sprinkler water valve works perfectly fine. (i.e. shuts off water when turned off, vice versa)

I looked at the wiring and while the system is old and has been with the house since 2010, the wires look frazzled but then again, I feel like they've always looked like that whenever I trim the trees just right next to it.

At least right now, I don't think this will need a complete rewiring but I also don't have a multimeter to measure it at the moment.

Looking at the wires again, I actually don't know which combination is which for each electrical nut.

When I first checked, all the caps were off but the bundles were still connected by the twist-ties.

I do know that the white communications wire should be connected to all stations, and since all stations don't work, would that mean just the white wire needs to be fixed?

I attached photos as best I could to show the situation I'm dealing with.

Thank you all in advance!

A 3/4" PVC fitting has a socket depth of about 1".
And once it's primed and glued, the pipe will pretty much bottom out.
But when dry fitting, it won't come close to that, and if it does, it will be like trying to get two nested 5 gallon buckets separated.
Are the any hacks? Or just measure it?

Aloha from Maui,

I have a tropical plant garden I'm putting some drip lines in and had a question about layout. The garden is about 30ft long and 6 ft in depth and butts up against a fence. I have a 1/2 supply line running against the fence at the back of the planter.

I'd like to have a valve to some parts of the garden as some parts need less water than others.

Should I run 1/4 off this supply line? Or should I place a T in the supply line every 10 feet with a short length of supply line which has the 1/4 lines connected to that? A valve would be at the beginning of each of these supply line spurs to control flow.

Is it possible for irrigation to cause such a large sinkhole? Soil is soft very deep, can push this rake in almost 3 feet. Inside is a cavern that I'm surprised has not collapsed. There is no leak when irrigation is off based on my water meter which detects even a minor leak. This sinkhole is located around 10 ft downhill from valve box. I'm scared to run irrigation lines to check in case it makes it even worse. What is the best course of action?

Hello,

Recently moved in to a place and I've been working to fix up the previously rarely used irrigation system. A large tree root under this spot broke the line at that T joint and also where it connects to the next pipe - Looks like when they installed they tried to just go up and over it but who knows how long ago that was, and it didn't hold up long term.

Best way to replace this connection? Any advice appreciated. Looks to me like that connection is broken at both joints you can see for the line going up. The line going out to the left looks OK. Thanks!

So I’ve been doing this work a long time. Every season when it’s time for blowouts, I have a plethora of Rainbird scrubber valve that just don’t wanna open under compressed air to blowout via the clock. I always have to go and manually open the valve. I’ve tried lower psi, higher psi, cracking the ball valve on the compressor etc. anyone have solutions? On large commercial properties it’s a chore to open up 40+ valves. These valves all work fine in operating season for irrigating. Some are newer some are older. Only seems to happen with the 1.5” and bigger ones.

I’ve got a well pump running on a 3 zone timer and distributor that waters my lawn and garden and want to add a separate line to water my trees at different times. Any ideas?

Edit: okay, maybe these aren't blowout valves... I ran each zone and no water came out of any of these while unkept. So now I'm baffled as to what these are.

I have individual zone blowouts around my house... The threaded capped pipe... But what is this pipe with a shut off valve and what looks to be a one-way valve at the top?

Hey folks, I'm looking for a quick sanity check before I start glueing PVC this weekend (never done this before 😅).

I have an existing 3 Irritrol anti siphon valves (3rd one has a drip filter/regulator on the outlet). The underground supply line terminates directly under the 3rd valve with a 90° elbow pointing up into the inlet riser.

I need to add 1 valve right now and want to add 2 extra for more future zones (so adding a rail for 3 solenoids total).

I'm considering two options:

1. Cut the horizontal supply line underground right before the bottom 90° elbow, add a coupling + bridge pipe. Then run a new horizontal manifold of tees at the same depth everything sits flat on the trench bed.
2. Since the 3rd valve has a union on the riser, cut the vertical pipe a couple inches above that bottom elbow, put a tee there, and run the new manifold horizontally across from that higher point (around 4-6" deep).

Option 2 feels like way less diging and headache to line up, but I'm worried having 3 new valves hanging off a tee on that vertical pipe creates too much leverage/strain on the bottom joint over time.

I attached photos with current state and drawing for options 1 and 2.

A few questions:

• Has anyone run an expansion like option 2 long term without cracking?
• Should I just dig out the deeper trench, and keep the whole manifold rail flat on the ground?
  
• Also, can I use a tee at the end of the line (tee4 on the photos) and cap it or should I use 90° elbow?

Appreciate any advice!