The double check has two large ball valves with handles and four test cocks with slots. Test cocks are tiny ball valves, and all ball valves will trap water when fully open or closed. This trapped water may freeze and crack the brass body. The way to avoid freeze breakage is to leave these valves at a 45 degree angle. Half open, half closed. Note the handle above as well as the slot the screwdriver is in. Both ball […]
“It’s that time of year again.” Yep, sure is. People always say that when they see me blowing out a system. It used to drive me nuts, like “Workin’ hard? Or hardly workin’?” (Don’t ever say this. Ever.) As I’ve gotten older I realize most people are just trying to be friendly, and that I spent my youth far too self-absorbed. It IS that time, friends, to have your system blown out. This is the best way to ensure your pipes, heads, […]
This post is dedicated to all the “Irrigidiocy” I come across in my day. Someone forgot to remove jumper wire in sensor terminal- I wonder why the rain sensor doesn’t work? UNSERVICABLE VALVEThanks, rookie sprinkler guy. I need to take apart that valve on the left. Any suggestions on how I get my drill or screwdriver on those screws? NO BACKFLOW PREVENTER This is a lazy point of connection that doesn’t meet code. It took me forever to find this […]
This morning I surfed the web trying to find a friction loss chart for funny pipe. You don’t see them at the back of any irrigation catalogs and rightly so. You never want to design laterals using funny pipe. It’s a swing joint, and every pro sprinkler guy has seen amateurs overuse funny pipe, add too many heads, etc. That said, there are always special circumstances where the most seasoned and crusty sprinkler guy must bend some rules. In this […]
On Sunday, Nov. 3 I touched down in Austin and hooked up with my friends Mike and Vivian, ex-Seattleites now living in the Hyde Park neighborhood. They agreed to house me for a week out of the kindness of their hearts, or the lack of sense in their brains. Crusty had come down the dusty trail to see all the other Crustys in the water biz. From the Wiki page, IA in a nutshell: “The Irrigation Association (IA) is a […]
“Why should I care about what ‘precipitation rate’ is?” The short answer is so you can impress all your friends at the next fancy soiree or neighborhood block party as you rattle off the difference between fixed arc pattern sprayheads and gear-drive rotors. Precipitation rate is the amount of water put down by a sprinkler in a certain amount of time. It’s measured here in the metric system hating U.S. of A. in inches per hour (iph). The reason we care […]
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS LANGUAGE PROBABLY UNDERSTOOD ONLY BY SPRINKLER GUYS. IN FACT I POSTED THIS MAINLY TO DEMONSTRATE MY NEW METHOD TO CO-WORKERS. YOU’RE WELCOME TO READ ON, BE ADVISED IT MAY BORE YOU TO TEARS. First buid your manifold. Make sure tees sit outside the box. I cut 1″x12″ sc80 nips in half, which works great. Glue in laterals long enough to extend a few inches outside the box. Flip your box upside down, set the manifold […]
What the heck is a swing joint? A ballroom of hepcats and zoot suiters? Well for our purposes a swing joint is made of flexible tubing that attaches the sprinkler head to the lateral pipe. It makes moving the head easier and ensuring it’s straight. It also prevents parts from snapping due to foot traffic. The head has more flexibility when getting kicked around or stepped on. When properly installed a head should be enough to grade as not to […]
The sprinklers are running for some reason when they’re not supposed to and you’ve tried everything. You’ve turned off your controller. You’ve unplugged your controller. You’ve ripped the controller off the wall and smashed it with a baseball bat and those sprinklers are still running! You need to go shut off the sprinkler mainline. Just like you should have a red wrench thingy by your gas meter for emergencies, you should know where your sprinkler main valve is and have […]
Moles are cute furry guys that think no one likes them, so they opt to go eat worms. They are truly nature’s bohemians, “diggin’” stuff and staying “underground”. I think they’re pretty cool; they have two thumbs on each paw. They do, however, like to make my life a little harder by filling up valve boxes with dirt. Some genius sprinkler guy came up with Mole Guard. I see they are changing the product’s name to Box Guard, in an […]
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