When I left off, we were digging searching for the end of the bad pipe section. Eventually we found it.
- sprinklers3.gif (622.79 KiB) Viewed 1731 times
You can see the shattered pipe and at the bottom of the picture, a cap off so we can test the rest of the system. This pipe was headed to a sprinkler head at the left end of the junipers. The trench is about 1 1/2 feet deep. It has never frozen before in over 30 years.
Now that that no longer leaks, time to test the rest of the zone. Start pump, turn on the valve for the front, and watch the sprinklers go. Sounds good anyway. Well, sprinklers going half-ass. Looking around I see a geyser of water about a foot high out in the middle of the grass. We have another leak! This time we are a lot smarter. The geyser was at the far hole. We dug another hole between a sprinkler head and the bad spot instead of a trench. That was a lot faster. We had good pipe in that hole. In fact, that was an 1 1/2" pipe. That explained all of the water flow. The first one was only a 3/4" pipe going to 1 head.
- sprinklers4.gif (707.78 KiB) Viewed 1731 times
Here's the problem spot hole. What you can't see is the phone line that was buried with the sprinkler pipe. I knew it was there and it seemed a good idea at the time. It meant we had to be very careful digging.
- sprinklers5.gif (805.64 KiB) Viewed 1731 times
Here's the temporary fix. You can see the phone line just above the pipe.
- sprinklers6.gif (809.21 KiB) Viewed 1731 times
A cap off. This leaves 3 heads out of the circuit. Time to test for more leaks. This time everything seems to be working fine. I have some time to figure out how I'll do the permanent fix.
Leonard