Ugh, irrigation

So, this morning I was working on my coffee trying to get motivated to do another block of annoying administrivia when my son said, “hey, Dad, did you know there’s a big sprinkler leak in the front yard?” I knew there was a leak, but wasn’t a big one. Wondered out the front door and there was a small geyser blasting a jet of water about 6 feet out of the ground. Good times.

I knew there was a small leak in that drip irrigation zone; there’s been a puddle at the end of the driveway that starting to get bigger. Oh, well, might as well get to it. So, I dug up the area, and quickly found the problematic swing pipe and spliced in a repair.

Ok, lets check the repair. Ran back to the sprinkler controller and turned on the just repaired zone for a few minutes. Checked the repair area, good, seems to have fixed the problem. Hmm, is it really fixed, I see a tiny bit of water trickling near the repair. I move the repaired pipe out of the way and there’s a still bit of water trickling from somewhere else. Ugh.

Just down the line from where I made the repair, the swing line enters a PVC pipe and goes under my double wide concrete driveway. Earlier this year, the city replaced part of the driveway to make sidewalks more ADA compliant, and accidentally cut through that PVC pipe. I noticed this before the new driveway that covers the pipe was laid and told one of the concrete crew about it and they said they’d fix it.

I was skeptical, but an hour later, they laid in new PVC pipe near the old one (and deeper in the ground.) It seemed like the plan was to move the swing line to the new PVC pipe and abandon the old one (which was partially embedded in a different section of driveway that was not being replaced.) Reasonable.

I wondered off for a few hours and by the time I got back the new driveway section was in place and the holes in the yard where the forms for the concrete were already backfilled.

Flashback to today… the water is tricking out of that PVC pipe that goes under the driveway. Looking closer, a smaller PVC pipe for sprinklers also goes through the same pipe. Wow, I didn’t realize that the concrete guy moved both of those lines. Hmm, having both those pipes in there seems pretty snug. I guess I’ll figure see if I can cut the swing line that’s leaking somewhere in the PVC pipe and pull it through and push a replacement through.

Thinking some more, it felt like that new pipe wasn’t were I remembered it. I scrolled back through pictures I took during the repair and didn’t have one of the new pipe in place (I happened to be coming back from a run when the guys were working on it and didn’t have my phone handy.) Wait, this line isn’t in the right place, its right were they cut into the old pipe. Shouldn’t these lines be in a new pipe?

With some more digging on the start side, I found the new pipe 6" away and about 8" deeper. With no pipes in it.

Start Side Before

End Side Before

So, the concrete guys who made the repair added the new pipe, but never moved the swing line to use it. A brief but loud interlude of cursing was enjoyed by anyone within earshot at this point.

Ok, I’ve got all the parts to put a new swing pipe through the new PVC pipe. So, I dug out more on both sides to get the swing pipe into the new PVC without putting a kink in the line. YOLO, here we go. I started feeding the swing line and everything was going great until it 3/4 of the way there and hit an obstruction. I tried turning the swing line and gave it a few more shoves to ram it through but got nowhere.

Hmm, about trying to clear the line with my garden house? I would have liked to thread the hose into the line and clear it closer to the blockage but after spending few seasons outside, the spray head on my hose is now permanently attached. So, I pointed the spray head into the PVC and hoped for the best. I paused for a few seconds to see if water was blasting out the other end, but nope. I let it spray for a whole minute more and water only trickling out the other end.

I grabbed the replacement swing line and tried to push it through again. Got to the blockage and it still seems pretty well stuck. I tried turning the swing pipe while continuing to shove and the hose eventually made it through and popped out the other end. Yea!

So, I went back to the source end and spliced on the new line. Before I trimmed off the excess and spliced the other end, I ran the zone to flush out the line. I was pretty sure all that shoving pushed mud into the end of that line and I don’t want to blast further down the line (it clogs all the emitters.) I’m glad I did because there was a few seconds of solid brown spewing out the end before the water turned clear again. Then, it was on trimming that end, removing a bunch of abandoned swing lines and misc irrigation parts buried in the area and splicing on the new line.

Start Side After

End Side After

With mending complete, I fired up the zone and looked for more links. Thankfully there were no more leaks on either end. All that was left to do was backfill and clean up. I guess there’s a little more to do, when I took out the grass where I was digging, the ground was super matted and loads of topsoil came out with the grass. I’ve never had good luck at putting that grass back. So, I’ll dump in some new topsoil and plant some new grass.

I knew a major irrigation repair was coming; there seems to always be one on the horizon. It wasn’t on my agenda to work on this one today, but feels like I got something done and added a new merit badge for an under the driveway irrigation repair.

Update: I checked the zone after this evening’s real zone run. I think the problems are fixed, but there’s another leak further up the line the leaks fixed here. 😖 Doesn’t seem like a big one. Hopefully, I can let it go until next weekend.