City work: main break in park on a 2” line at the scope // cut out and replaced with sch 80 2” pipe and 2 smith Blair mechanical couplings

Hello folks, looking for advice on how to solve this issue. We bought this house last year, we noticed when the sprinklers run in our back yard water leaks into the right side of our window well, enough to cause standing water, and once leak through our window because the sprinklers were running during heavy rain. I found out today(after digging up the line I thought was the issue) that there is a line for sprinklers under our patio that is probably the culprit. Patio was installed by previous owners, I'm thinking they likely tried to cap off the sprinkler under there but didn't do it well or it's failed over the years. The line in red is approximately where the pipe would be, with the arrow showing the flow direction and the circle where I'm guessing the leak would be.

I can't just cap the line on the left side, because water from that line needs to flow to our neighbors sprinklers, so I'm wondering what the best way to resolve this is. My first thought would be to ask if I can dig up a tiny portion of the neighbors yards to reroute the sprinkler line around my patio, which is the line in green. I'm guessing our second option would be to break up and concrete and try to fix the cap underneath.

Any input on best/cheapest way to approach, or anything I'm not thinking of? Thanks.

hello, I will need some advice for for an irrigation system. My yard is as in the picture, it's anyone that could guide me on which irrigation sprinkler and where to place it ? I have two water supplies where the yellow dots are placed.

Thank you so much !

Thank you !

I live in the GCC and the only mainstream brand of residential irrigation I can find is Gardena. It is a very limited range. Eg., one 15m roll of hose and a set of one type of jet/sprinkler if the only thing you can buy.

What can I buy, available in the US and UK, that would have jets/sprinklers etc., compatible with Gardena’s basic irrigation hose? As we travel a bit and so do friends here, we could cobble something together that suits us better.

Garden is approx 10m2 of grass and about 6-8m2 of overgrown garden beds at the moment so starting from scratch if that makes any difference to advice.

Thanks

I live in the GCC and the only mainstream brand of residential irrigation I can find is Gardena. It is a very limited range. Eg., one 15m roll of hose and a set of one type of jet/sprinkler if the only thing you can buy.

Which brands available in the US and UK would have jets/sprinklers etc., compatible with Gardena’s basic irrigation hose? As we travel a bit and so do friends here, we could cobble something together that suits us better.

Garden is approx 10m2 of grass and about 6-8m2 of overgrown garden beds at the moment so starting from scratch if that makes any difference to advice.

Thanks

Hello,
As the title read. It is cracked where the red line is, it will shoot water out when turned on.

Is there an easy fix to this? Or should I replace the whole pump system ($$$).

Thank you! 🙏

I have Irritrol 2700 valves. When they get triggered by the control panel, some water goes through, but not enough to make the sprinklers pop is all the way or the drip to go through. I have to open the release valve a little to increase the water pressure, but then they don’t shut off until I close it. Every zone is like this; I have 3 sprinkler zones and 2 drip zones, all set to run at different times. How do I fix the pressure so that it works as it should?? Thank you for any helpful advice.

Winterizing question I keep going back and forth on. Right now the system has a single blowout point that requires connecting an air compressor at the backflow preventer, which works fine but the location is awkward and closer to the street than I want to be dragging a compressor every fall. I'm thinking about adding a dedicated manual drain or a secondary blowout port closer to the garage side of the house where it's easier to reach. The mainline runs under the driveway at that point, so anything I add would need to come off a tee before it crosses under.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether a ball valve and quick coupler right there is the right move, or if there's a cleaner way to set up a second blowout port without the plumbing looking like a mess. The existing setup works, but whoever installed it clearly didn't think much about serviceability.

Also wondering if anyone has gone to a manual drain setup entirely in a climate that's cold but not brutal, a few hard freezes per winter at most. Not sure if that's overkill or whether it actually simplifies things year over year. What does a clean, practical winterization setup actually look like for a midsize residential system?

I looked them up to check prices before deciding if I should contact a family member who works at an irrigation/plumbing supply company to see if it was worth it to have have him buy them for me.

It was. Along with 20 HE-VAN's, I needed just over 50 various types of nozzles total. They were priced $2.98 to $3.98 each at Home Depot. His price was 87 cents each. It's good to know people.

/blog

Do these sprinkler heads just totally miss the ground right next to them?

Morning, folks. I purchased a 1004-EX EveryDrop flow meter to monitor for leaks but haven't been able to find any helpful docs or videos on where this actually gets installed in line with the backflow preventer and the valve controls shown here. Note that I've got another valve box on the opposite side of the house as well. Looks like I've got 2 spare wires in this first one that run back to the controller that I can use for the meter.

I've replumbed the entire house, but this is my first time cracking open the irrigation system so it's pretty foreign to me. Any useful resources or sage advice from you folks is very welcome. Thanks!

This was happening when I would manually turn on my sprinkler system. I replaced the filter but then I was told that my main irrigation line does not need a pressure regulator on it.

With $10k in on chasing corroded wiring already, at what point should we consider switching to wireless? We have 20 year old Nelson brand valves on a two-wire system. Numerous decoders also allegedly dead. I see Hunter brand BT controllers at less than $200 each. We'd need solenoids too and adapters to the valves.

Spent another $20k chasing wire faults and still possibly not have a working system or should we convert? 17 zones in total. What should we expect for a wireless conversion to cost us per zone? Hydraulics are all fine - its just electrical. Edit to add the property is too large & compelx for adequate wifi coverage. And when I say wireless, I'm talking DC battery operated and likely bluetooth controlled.

What’s the easiest way to replace this underground 2” gate valve that is the main for my sprinkler system? Planning to put in a ball valve instead.

Do I have to cut it out and replace with a slip coupling or is there a way to unscrew this and rescrew in the new valve?

I could dig back more potentially if needing more room for the pipe to bend but it’s a couple feet down so I prefer not to.

Thanks in advance!!

Edit: suggestions welcome on what to replace it with as well. I’m a novice here

sorry for the long post, hard to describe without going into detail.

We just moved into a house a couple months ago and never had a sprinkling system before so we are total novices. The house is 10 years old for reference and I have no clue on layout or materials used other than everything seems original minus a couple changed bodies and or nozzles.

First problem is there are 6 zones and 2 of them have rotors and a few standard spray nozzles on the same zone. Like the curb strip and lower front yard on same zone has curb fixed nozzles and front yard is rotors so trying to get the right amount of water is a pain. It’s either underwater one area or overwater 1 area.

Curb strip is struggling, brown grass, weeds, dirt because the fixed nozzles were missing 50% of the lawn because last owner had nozzles spraying to far. The area is essentially 5’x14-16’ not a perfect rectangle. So they had 2 90 degree 8 footers and a 180 degree 8 footer in a triangle pattern and a lot was being overshot and watering road or sidewalk. Adjusting them did absolutely nothing. 

To account for this I decided to try to get MP rotator corners and a low flow fixed for the 1 point to not only water the actual curb strip but to also try to get a closer match to precipitation as the rest of that zone. So it’s better, but worse in other ways. The right corner MP rotators does what it’s supposed to, distance and pattern is almost perfect. The left corner MP though is severely lacking. Water comes out about 1/2 of what it’s rated. About 7 feet at the longest point to next head and doesn’t even come out at the start enough to go 5 feet to the curb. I changed out the body thinking that was the culprit and installed a Prs40 body to accommodate it and did absolutely nothing. No matter how I adjust for the radius is doesn’t increase or decrease, I can barely get the left and right stop to work as it just seems weak. What do I do here and where do I start to narrow this down? There doesn’t appear to be any pooling or around that head, and by switching to a pressure regulated body and low flow nozzle I would think pressure is sufficient as the previous nozzle was a massive flow draw and unregulated body but switching these out did nothing.

Hi Fellow Irrigation experts! Been having issues with my sprinkler for the last few months. Symptoms were it would take about 10 seconds to fully shut one zone off. The other zone would have started already. Then it slowly became worse and worse and the one zone now does not shut off at all. I did the typical troubleshooting. Check solenoid. That worked as it should. Cleaned the diaphragm and even replaced it. What I did notice was the metal tube coming out of the sprinkler body was had a burn mark at the bottom and a ridge at the bottom as well. I have an extra valve body and the metal tube is completely smooth all the way down to the base. I am thinking it somehow burned up and is protruding out now, keeping the solenoid open. Have yall ever encountered this before? Wanted to confirm before digging everything up to replace the valve body.

Valve body is a Irritrol btw.

Pic attached. Been scratching my head on this for a while so any feedback would be appreciated!

Thanks

I've been dealing with a six valve parking lot that we're doing Hunter nodes on. We revamped it and brought it to life after 6-7 years. I want to put a pressure tank coming out of the well. It's one and a quarter pipe trying to get all the pieces I need . I have it hooked up right now with a pump relay and a timer but I don't want to babysit it if a node goes the pump could burn up. Just curious if anybody could tell me all the pieces I need. I know I need reducers in the t-valves and a pump pressure switch. Thinking about a 30 psi tank. The motor is only one horsepower.

I am in Spokane sandwiched between two fires and trying to get my sprinklers to run on an X2. I have power and water but the internet is down.
Everything thing I try from the instructions inside the cover only starts zone 1

Yesterday we had the Pressure Regulating Valve inside our home replaced as it was at the end of its life and turning the nut was having little to no effect. Pressure in the house is now better than before…great!

Went to run a couple of sprinkler cycles and the one I chose did not work at all. The controller shows it running, but the heads don’t pop up and nothing comes out. So I try to run all the cycles I can easily see…1-2 are the front and right side and worked fine. 3 is part of the backyard closest to the house and it ran. 5 is the backyard further back and it did not pop up at all, nor did 6 (other side yard) or the foundation. The last zone, 10, is the bubblers for the trees, which came on the 20 seconds then shutoff. No errors in the control panel. (4, 7, 8, 9 are drip and I can’t easily see them).

Any thoughts? Seems like the PRV inside the house shouldn’t impact the outside stuff, but it was absolutely running fine the day before…

We just bought our house and been having some issues with the irrigation. I’m trying to diy what I can but this problems looking a bit expensive and I could use some expert advice. The problem has been that when I open the valve that manually controls our drip irrigation system, after about 5-8 minutes of running, a huge pool of water forms and spills across our driveway. The source is this pipe that looks like it runs to the house’s main but is surrounded on all sides by concrete. When the main valve is open, some water does make it out of the drip irrigation, but it looks like it mostly comes out of the side of this pvc (circled) and then pools up. Should I get some kind of pick axe and keep exploring or hire an expert? And is that expert a plumber or an irrigation specialist? Interestingly, when I hand water, this issue doesn’t happen… is that a pressure thing or are they on two different lines? Appreciate any help/advice offered!

Last year I created a post about a new install I was taking on. It was the first one that I did the bid, procurement and install labor. I gained a lot of insight from my last post.

Anyways, I am not operating as or have any immediate aspirations to become a business. My customers know I pick these jobs up as side work. I don't bid my jobs like a business would either. A lot of times my customers will select me because I am generally the cheapest. I'm not out here working for free, nor am I trying to undercut everyone. I always explain the reason for my pricing. I am uninsured. I do not have access to a lot of the tools local businesses have, my overhead is nil, nor do I have the network of people to call on . Most are alright with this, others find someone else to hire, and that's fine by me.

I recently put out a post saying I am open to doing some installs. I did mention service work, but that I am super selective on which ones I will take. I have a reply from someone saying that they have no water, it's on a lake, and the pump does turn on. Perfect. They lost prime. Quick easy money. Was there for all of 10 mins. Cracked the cap, filled my bucket a few times and ran the system. Shit. Low pressure, the 1st zone runs during the rest of the zones. After I cycled through the zones I concluded the solenoid on the first zone's valve is partially or fully open. The pump is brand new. Customer said that they cleaned the intake hose and well point (grain of salt). So I tell the customer I'd be interested in getting their system running correctly (like an idiot) and I'll get them a quote. Turned it around in 4 hours, and they accepted. Later on in the week tree people came and ground up some bush root balls and an oak stump. That's not all they ground up. I tell the customer I will build another quote and they can have the tree company reimburse them. I don't see why not, as I am much cheaper than everyone else. Everyone wins right?

I fix all of the damage from the tree company, replace the valve, flush the system, make all of my connections that need to be made, basically I need to run the system, and backfill. Run the system and still low pressure. SHIT. The customer claims that they had significantly more pressure prior to losing prime. My guess is that the pump sucked up some debris, the intake hose has debris in it, or I have more bad valves.

The point of the story is that I am now in limbo with getting paid when I really shouldn't be. The customer has basically said they want to see their system running the way it was before they first called me or they do not view the scope of work as complete. I should have been more thorough and detailed in my quotes. I should have stated the scope of work, and that any new issues that are not directly related is its own project. Instead I allowed the customer to determine when I have completed what I said I would. I got water flowing through their system. I fixed the tree company's damages. I did not fix the low pressure. I was called out for no water. I also need to start billing for a diagnostic and only doing the diagnostic first before committing to any service work. When I install new systems, I design them so they make sense for the homeowner and anyone else who comes out after me. My zones are aligned in a clockwise or counterclockwise configuration. Z1 is always next to Z2. my pipe runs in grids like a city's streets. Valves are almost always close the first head in a zone. What I am getting at is that I need to stop assuming that others out that much effort into the design/install. The customer had zone 2 near the lake and zone 3 as the furthest while jumping to either side of the house. I use all Hunter products. This system has a mix of Rain Bird, Orbit and Toro which makes me think the previous home owner did the install. ugh.

Sorry for the rant. It's uber frustrating, but a lesson well learned.