Adventures in irrigation
Jun. 24th, 2014 22:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillYesterday afternoon, I decided to finally tackle the project which has been preying on my mind, and I started digging the trench for the replacement sprinkler at the far corner of the back lawn area. The lawn needs three new sprinklers placed, and I was going to get one of them installed, dammit.
On my second stroke with the pick (dry clay) I saw something odd. By the time I figured out what it was, my third stroke hit, with the inevitable PSSSSSSHHHHHH. I had hit the main irrigation line. Sigh.
I turned off the well valve, then excavated everything. The piece I had hit was (of course) part of a close connection between the main and a bypass line I hadn't known was there, complicated by reducers and splices and god knows what else. I would have to take out all the surrounding bits to replace the broken part. So... in the best tradition of scope creep, I decided to implement my "yeah I should get to that someday" project of moving the irrigation valves (one of which would feed the sprinkler I was putting in) two feet to the right. Because hey, I have to take out a bunch of crap anyway, I might as well do that while I have it all dug up. And I could add a cutoff valve, which I've been installing whenever I do major work on valves now, because waiting a full day for all the water in the whole system to drain out through a cut pipe so you can replace a broken valve is not my idea of a good time.
I had time to buy parts and cut a couple of pipes (see: drain the system) before dinner yesterday, and I got up early to tackle it today, hopefully before it got too hot. The valve at the back of the lawn is in the shade almost all day, but it's right up against the back forty, which is sun-drenched and collects the heat even on relatively mild days.
Four hours later, I had: moved the valves; pulled up their rebar reinforcement (it'll get reinstalled when I start burying things again); run fresh and uncomplicated lines on the main, the garden line, and the tee to the city-water bypass (which feeds the irrigation if the well is offline); put in a stub for additional water to the garden later; installed a cutoff valve and housing; spliced an additional length onto the irrigation control wire so it would reach the new location for the valves; rewired the valves (correctly, yay!); removed a moderate-sized tree root which would have stressed the main line if I'd driven over the whole mess, which I would eventually; and finally installed the damned sprinkler line. I took pictures (now standard protocol) and even marked notes on the pipes in Sharpie, because while Sharpie fades in sunlight, it lasts for decades underground. This way if I dig up a pipe I'll see "MAIN -->" on it, and I won't have to wonder whether it's feeding the sprinkler.
Pictures here.
I still need to set the rebar and fasten it to the upright pipes with hose clamps (proof against random acts of lawnmower), insulate the pressurized standpipes, and bury the whole deal again. I'll mark the new garden stub with a stone or a brick set into the ground, as I've started to do with other junctions out there (I try to set them at least 6-8" deep, so they aren't dislodged by accident). And then, hopefully, I won't have to mess with it for at least another decade. Moving the valves, which stand up about two feet above the ground, a couple of feet over should reduce the risk that I'll hit them with the pickup once I've cleared a trail past the fig tree. I'll give them a steel fencepost as a visual marker when I actually start using that "back road".
Why didn't I bury the valves? One, I hate working on underground valves (even my knees and back aren't that good). Two, leaks and malfunctions are far less easy to spot in a timely fashion. And three, the trump card: underground valves attract tree roots, and if there's one thing we've got, it's greedy trees. Everywhere. I've had to abandon valves which started leaking quietly in their underground box, and then finally stopped working when the fibrous mass of roots had completely swallowed them. It's bad enough when we get a leaking sprinkler -- I'm not looking forward to chipping away the mat from around the second sprinkler in the back lawn so that I can replace it -- but valves have vents and passages the roots can get into that clog up the works. We tried burying valves once, twenty years ago, and by this time I've settled on sticking them 1-3' in the air, visual impact be damned. Most people look right past them anyway. If this place gets pretty enough I have to worry about it, I'll spend some time making realistic fiberglass "rocks" that fit over them.
I haven't put the head in the new sprinkler yet, so installing it and adjusting the throw and duration will be its own project -- but at least it's physically in place. That was the really hard work. There's some cleanup I need to do before I can activate that sprinkler and seed more grass, so I'll focus on that next. But wow, what a day.
Need I mention that after the irrigation work I did a large load of laundry and hung it out, cooked a vegan dinner for nine from scratch, did dishes, attended our weekly Doctor Who session, and even remembered to take the laundry in afterward? Whew.
On my second stroke with the pick (dry clay) I saw something odd. By the time I figured out what it was, my third stroke hit, with the inevitable PSSSSSSHHHHHH. I had hit the main irrigation line. Sigh.
I turned off the well valve, then excavated everything. The piece I had hit was (of course) part of a close connection between the main and a bypass line I hadn't known was there, complicated by reducers and splices and god knows what else. I would have to take out all the surrounding bits to replace the broken part. So... in the best tradition of scope creep, I decided to implement my "yeah I should get to that someday" project of moving the irrigation valves (one of which would feed the sprinkler I was putting in) two feet to the right. Because hey, I have to take out a bunch of crap anyway, I might as well do that while I have it all dug up. And I could add a cutoff valve, which I've been installing whenever I do major work on valves now, because waiting a full day for all the water in the whole system to drain out through a cut pipe so you can replace a broken valve is not my idea of a good time.
I had time to buy parts and cut a couple of pipes (see: drain the system) before dinner yesterday, and I got up early to tackle it today, hopefully before it got too hot. The valve at the back of the lawn is in the shade almost all day, but it's right up against the back forty, which is sun-drenched and collects the heat even on relatively mild days.
Four hours later, I had: moved the valves; pulled up their rebar reinforcement (it'll get reinstalled when I start burying things again); run fresh and uncomplicated lines on the main, the garden line, and the tee to the city-water bypass (which feeds the irrigation if the well is offline); put in a stub for additional water to the garden later; installed a cutoff valve and housing; spliced an additional length onto the irrigation control wire so it would reach the new location for the valves; rewired the valves (correctly, yay!); removed a moderate-sized tree root which would have stressed the main line if I'd driven over the whole mess, which I would eventually; and finally installed the damned sprinkler line. I took pictures (now standard protocol) and even marked notes on the pipes in Sharpie, because while Sharpie fades in sunlight, it lasts for decades underground. This way if I dig up a pipe I'll see "MAIN -->" on it, and I won't have to wonder whether it's feeding the sprinkler.
Pictures here.
I still need to set the rebar and fasten it to the upright pipes with hose clamps (proof against random acts of lawnmower), insulate the pressurized standpipes, and bury the whole deal again. I'll mark the new garden stub with a stone or a brick set into the ground, as I've started to do with other junctions out there (I try to set them at least 6-8" deep, so they aren't dislodged by accident). And then, hopefully, I won't have to mess with it for at least another decade. Moving the valves, which stand up about two feet above the ground, a couple of feet over should reduce the risk that I'll hit them with the pickup once I've cleared a trail past the fig tree. I'll give them a steel fencepost as a visual marker when I actually start using that "back road".
Why didn't I bury the valves? One, I hate working on underground valves (even my knees and back aren't that good). Two, leaks and malfunctions are far less easy to spot in a timely fashion. And three, the trump card: underground valves attract tree roots, and if there's one thing we've got, it's greedy trees. Everywhere. I've had to abandon valves which started leaking quietly in their underground box, and then finally stopped working when the fibrous mass of roots had completely swallowed them. It's bad enough when we get a leaking sprinkler -- I'm not looking forward to chipping away the mat from around the second sprinkler in the back lawn so that I can replace it -- but valves have vents and passages the roots can get into that clog up the works. We tried burying valves once, twenty years ago, and by this time I've settled on sticking them 1-3' in the air, visual impact be damned. Most people look right past them anyway. If this place gets pretty enough I have to worry about it, I'll spend some time making realistic fiberglass "rocks" that fit over them.
I haven't put the head in the new sprinkler yet, so installing it and adjusting the throw and duration will be its own project -- but at least it's physically in place. That was the really hard work. There's some cleanup I need to do before I can activate that sprinkler and seed more grass, so I'll focus on that next. But wow, what a day.
Need I mention that after the irrigation work I did a large load of laundry and hung it out, cooked a vegan dinner for nine from scratch, did dishes, attended our weekly Doctor Who session, and even remembered to take the laundry in afterward? Whew.
