I have been battling the sprinkler system in my front yard for a while now. I spend a good part of last weekend working on it only to have completion of the project ripped from my grasp by a burst pipe (and my lack of competence in sprinkler systems). Today, however, I am triumphant.
Here is picture of my new found enemies unconditional surrender.
(That is the replacement for the section of burst pipe that was such a problem. Notice how it is not leaking. It’s the small things.)
The back story
In 2006 we had a walk added to our front yard. It added some nice visual interest and has been great. But it ended up covering one of the sprinkler heads. No big deal, we just turned off the front sprinklers. We had – and still do have, for that matter – big plans for xerascaping our front yard. We live in a semi-arid climate and have no need for a lush carpet of grass in the front yard.
A year and a half later we have still not finished the front yard. The grass is looking really bad this spring, so we decided to fix the sprinklers. I like DYI projects – they are a hobby of mine – so last weekend I jumped in with gusto.
Everything was going great… I found the main line I need to cap to disable the heads under the walk. I installed a new head for some new small sprinklers in a flower bed. I removed another head whose placement was just dumb. Then I turn the sprinkler on and it worked. Well, except for the water spraying out of the ground in the middle of the yard.
It seems that in the intervening two winters the sprinkler line burst. So I dug the appropriate hole, cut out the busted pipe, and attempted to install a new section. Several times. And then I had to give up for the day because it was getting dark. Today, I started again, and as they say, the rest is history.