Irrigation Repairs on the Fly

Up near 620am. Another warm sticky morning. I checked the garage door right away. Still down. I also took the time to move all the KF bags to the driveway with a sign indicating that they were for them.

Hot, sticky run. Ran 4 miles.

Worked in New Albany. Busy day. Left for home later than I wanted. Somewhere close to 5pm.

After dinner I headed back out front to move the two remaining sprinkler heads – the pop-ups on the east side of the driveway. Quickly I was able to see that the mainline feeding those two followed the same path as the proposed service walk, and worse yet, the 1” mainline was extremely shallow. I knew I’d need to completely expose the line to prevent the concrete formers from cutting/damaging the line unknowingly.

Mindy came out to see what I was up against. It was tough digging. I also needed to expose the electrical conduit I buried several years ago running out under the pine tree for uplighting. It was at least a foot deep but very likely why they went so shallow with the irrigation line through that area. After all, I told them about the conduit install day. Turned out, the zone #6 mainline was even shallower than I thought. I ended up nicking it pretty good while digging to further expose it. I kept digging back until it was at least 6” outside the concrete form zone. I then ran the zone quickly for two reasons, one to see if the nick went all the way through, and second, to see if the rest of the pop-ups would be impacted by the service walk.

Of course! Once on my fears were confirmed. I put a hole in the zone #6 mainline. Dang it! It would have to be fixed before concrete work for sure. Figured worst case I would call Nationwide irrigation and beg for same day service call Wednesday to make the repair. I still had another sprinkler head to expose.

The third head, the last on the east side of the drive was a little easier. By then I knew that the mainline feeding it ran parallel to the driveway and would end up under the extension, so all I could do was move the “t” line for the sprinkler head out of the way of the extension and form. To do so I had to make a quick drive to Lowes. Bella went with.

At Lowes I was in a hurry. First, I rounded up a 100’ roll of ½” irrigation line. I also bought pinch clamps and a 1” “t” splice. I wanted to buy a pair of pinch clamp pliers but they were all out. Figures! Just my luck. I knew I had a pair of tile nips at home that pretty much are of the same design, only with a sharper edge at the pinch. I’d try that.

We hurried home arriving near 830pm. Darkness was fast approaching, so I somewhat hurriedly got to my first attempt at splicing the mainline of the sprinkler system. Easy work. I cut the line right at the nick, put a crimp ring each side of the splice then pinched the rings with my tile nippers adding an old dish towel between so not to cut the soft metal. Worked like a charm. When I tested zone #6, there was a miniscule drip but one I could live with. I felt good with the repair and quickly got busy cutting a long 6” piece of the ½” irrigation line and extending both lines for the pop-ups that were in the way. I used rigid wire hoops to hold the heads in place above ground so we can continue to water through the extended dry period. I felt really good about the relocation and repair work. Crisis avoided!