Home irrigation system question

[Chocaholic]

Just moved into our new (20 year old) house in Greenville, SC. First house I've ever owned with an in-ground sprinkler system....and would be perfectly happy without one. I will never win yard-of-the-month so needless to say, it will not get much (if any) use. Here's the dilemma:

Had a fence installed and some heads were outside of the property line. Had a guy come out and move them in. But, system leaks...apparently the PO was hack and too cheap to have repairs done right. It's on a separate meter, and even when off, the meter runs (slowly) and puddles/mud form around a couple of the heads. Repair guy says live with it....but I have dogs who seem to enjoy the wet mud....they are inside dogs. So, I go down to the curb and shut off the water, but now....no water at outside spigots. Can't even rinse the dog shat off my boots.

Dude wants to find inground valves, rebuild, replace fiddle, faddle to ultimately get it water tight. I just want it turned off so I can use my spigots, but not send water into the irrigation system. I'm tempted to simply cut off the leaky heads and cap them underground and fuggeddabouddit. But there's probably better solutions.

Can I install a valve just after the meter to shut off water to the irrigation system only? That way, on the blue-moon when I want to use it, I can open the valve and tinkle on my lawn. Otherwise, still have water to the spigots and not irrigation system.

Thoughts??? As a homeowner with two houses to maintain, the last thing in the friggin world I want to spend money on is a watering contraption.

Open to suggestions!

[peppy]

Install an outside spigot on the house (frost free) and shut the other meter off at the road. No need to pay the monthly bill on that water meter.

[LakeCleElum]

You should have a box buried in the ground that is a "manifold" for the runs to the circuits in the lawn. You will find a 1/4 turn shut off valve in that box......

[carambola]

you should have an anti siphon valve on the outside of the house, that feeds your zone valves.
the a/s valve should have valves on it to shut off the system.
shut them down and if the meter still turns then you have a break from the meter to the house.
you could do what peppy said and just kill that meter and install a spigot from your house meter.
either way, it involves work and the lawn meter is cheaper, usually.

[kaisen]

There is a seperate valve for the irrigation system, downstream of the bibs.
I would fix the problems so you can use it when you want, and leave it off most of the time.
In-ground sprinklers are fantastic, you should at least be able to use them

[Esel Mann]

Check at the meter. If it is like mine, there is a valve right there. Since your irrigation is on a separate meter, turning off that line should not effect the rest of the water circuit.

Also since you mention that the PO was a bit of a hack, upon turning it off, take a moment to check all water faucets/spigots.


If your irrigation system is electrically controlled, turn off that circuit as well once the water is off. While its not much power, its savings none the less.

[tabs]

Fix the gdamned thing....geezus you do have Home Depots down there don't you. Sprinkler systems are like Tinker Toys....and are not ROCKET SCIENCE...For about $50 and some time you can get that thing up to speed.

Take a cheap doorbell button and ~150' (or whatever length from your sprinkler timer to furthest point of your yard) of 2 lead bell wire. Connect leads to doorbell one end, common and zone one terminal on timer. Walk around yard pushing doorbell button and you'll hear valve solonoid clicking. Mark the valve location and repeat for rest of the zones.

[Chocaholic]

Shadetree...we're in Roper Mountain Estates, off Roper Mountain Road near Garlington. Looks like we're neighbors???

Not sure I'm up for digging up my yard looking for boxes/solenoids, etc. I have it turned off at the road and discovered at least one spigot (near the driveway) that still works. So that may get me by for now. Not ideal, but to me, this is like expending effort and/or money to repair the AC in an 86 Carrera. A futile endeavor!

Will probably tinker around with it once the dust settles on our move.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Gordo2]

Dig in and fix it is your best advice. I had no clue how sprinkler systems work and figured it out quickly by working on mine (replacing heads, water lines, valves, electric valve wires etc).

Dig up the leaking head - either the head is leaking or the water line to the head is leaking. Either is easy to fix with a few parts from Lowe's/Home Depot.

You will probably need a crimp tool (~ $15.00) and crimp rings (~$10.00 for a bag of them) and possibly a few new sprinkler heads (~$10.00 ea).

Fixing leaky manifolds (the part that takes an inlet line, connects it to valves and distributes the water to multiple lines/zones throughout the yard) are a bit more tricky to fix or replace, but is definitely a home owner kind of project.

Good luck, Gordo

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by tabs

Fix the gdamned thing....geezus you do have Home Depots down there don't you. Sprinkler systems are like Tinker Toys....and are not ROCKET SCIENCE...For about $50 and some time you can get that thing up to speed.

That was my first thought as well. This is not rocket science and Home Depot has all the parts you would need. Replace the old tubing and heads if needed and its still not going to be that expensive, then its done and good for another 20 years.

[Chocaholic]

94 degrees in the shade today. Similar humidity. Will be a fall project. Plenty of other things to do to get settled/umpacked, etc.

Thanks again for the advice and ideas.

[Chocaholic]

Managed to find the offending Solenoid Valves in a box buried under the shrubs on the side of the house. These are 20 year old valves that appear to have never been rebuilt. Worse? It seems they are Hydro Flow valves. An internet search turned up:

Hydro Flow was sold to Hardie about 15 years ago. They were sold to Immotrol about 8 years ago. Immotrol makes a version of that valve and a company called Century makes a rebuild kit that fits the newer version of that valve...supposedly works on these older valves too. Found a supplier in Texas that carries the rebuild kits and ordered three of them yesterday. New diaghrams and solenoids for about 60 bux shipped.

I know you'll ask, why not just replace the valves with new Rainbirds from Lowes? A matter of digging up the plumbing under the hedge and cutting/redoing the plumbing to install new valves. Probably 10+ hours of work in 90+ degree weather, vs 15 minutes on my knees swapping out solenoids and diaghrams. No brainer! Have replaced a couple of bad heads already, so hopefully this fix will have things settled for another 10 years.

Just FYI for those with older irrigation systems. 20 minutes on the web saved hundreds of dollars and 10's of hours work. The more I dig into this system, the easier it's becoming to get it dialed in. Thanks for the encouragement....

[Joeaksa]

Will trade you!

Dammit! Just noticed a trickle of water coming from around my driveway. Turns out that a day later its a small flood. Ok, dig the puppy up and repair the tubing.

Get to the area and find big white PVC tubing??? This is not normal! Further digging shows that the leaking irrigation tubing is running in the white PVC tubing that then runs under the driveway to the rest of the yard!

DAMMIT! Now I get to dig up both sides of the driveway to get to the ends of the PVC pipe so I can snake new tubing under the drive. At least its supposed to be cooler in a day and will wait until then. This could turn into a lot of fun!

[JeffO]

The head is the low point of the system, with the leak coming from either the solenoid valve for that particular line leaking or the main solenoid for the entire system leaking and a branch line solenoid leaking with the main also. The valves are not a lot money, 20 to 25 dollars. The main is a bit more because it larger. Check your timer to see if it has a separate connection for the main valve and start there. I do not run my system using a main. This is very easy to work on and you will like it in the dead of summer. I just added a new line on mine to auto drip eleven three foot flower boxes on my deck. Very easy to do.