Phew, yesterday as I was rolling the trash container back from the curb, I looked at the grass in the west part of the back yard. It was looking very dry and crispy in some parts.
My wife had pros come plant three trees last spring, and all received three tie down posts to help keep them in place in the Oklahoma wind. We removed the posts this spring. We both noticed the hole from one of the posts just stayed open and we figured the dogs did that by digging it back out.
It was the sprinkler system. One of the posts was driven right into a connection. I dug a hole big enough to get to the leak, and found the orange tee smashed into two parts. I thought I was super lucky, and only the tee was the issue. I had to get my heat gun to heat up the black plastic pipe to get the old tee out, and the new one back in place. I was happy to go crank up the system and cussed a bit when there was still a geyser.
I cleaned off more of the fitting, and you can see the black crack under the bar code, and the hole in the pipe. Crap. This is gonna be a pain.
I can't glue the pipe if it is full of water.
So I dug around in my collection of stuff I keep in case I might need it someday. Today was the day.
This is a fitting for waterbeds, to fill or drain the waterbed. A garden hose to the top, and with the water running, it creates suction. With my multiple hoses, it sucked out the water from the lateral pipe and I could then glue things together. I just shoved the small hose into the hole, and let the garden hose run for a few minutes. Ready to glue!
I dug through my sprinkler parts, and found a saddle tap that would normally get drilled out to add an connection. I just used that as a patch. Then for big crack, I dug around in the attic, and found the bell end of a 40 foot piece of 1 1/4 pipe, and cut off the bell end. Cut that in half, and it fits the outer dimension of the fitting real well.
Lots of PVC primer, and lots of glue, and it is holding.
I would never try that if it was a pressure fitting or anything inside a house. Worst case, if it leaks a bit, the tree it is next to gets some extra water. The sprinkler system for that section is back to functional, and now the grass will get watered.
This is the biggest issue I have had with the sprinkler system since I personally installed in 22 years ago. And it was all damage caused by a post driven into the ground with perfect aim at a hard to get to connection.
The "cool" part to me, is it did not require one single trip to the big box store, or any store at all. I had all the parts, in my stash of those parts and stuff I can't throw out because I might need them someday. To have saddle tap for a 1 inch PVC pipe, and a leftover 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe from the main supply from the water well to the valves, the tee fitting, and fresh PVC cement and primer was a bonus. All the tools I needed, and everything came together to fix an issue, caused by someone else.