Trouble-Shooting Your Sprinkler System
In the summer heat, your sprinkler system is about the only thing protecting your landscaping from becoming an arid wasteland. Like all household systems, it needs a little TLC now and then. Here’s how to troubleshoot and repair your sprinkler system:
Replacing a Sprinkler Head
Sprinkler heads take a lot of abuse. They get kicked, stepped on and run over. That’s why they often break and spew water everywhere but where you want them to. The good news is that they are fairly easy to replace.
1. To give yourself easy access, dig out soil a few inches all around the head, uncovering the T-fitting where it joins the pipe. Remove the grass as a plug of sod so you can replace it after the repair is made.
2. Unscrew head from riser.
3. Screw new head onto riser.
4. If new head has directional spray (quarter circle, half circle, etc.), make sure it is aligned in the proper direction; repack the soil after testing the new head.
Pipe Breaks
Using an expanding PVC fitting called a “slip fix” allows you to remove a piece of damaged pipe and smoothly join the two sections without bending or twisting them to force-fit a replacement. You’ll know there’s a break because sprinkler pipes usually aren’t buried very deep, and water escaping under pressure will quickly bore a hole to the surface and bubble.
1. Uncover enough pipe around the break to create room to remove the broken section.
2. Remove roughly an 8-inch section, including the break.
3. Apply glue to the large, or slip-fit, end of the fitting and slip it over one end of the exposed pipe.
4. Glue a regular PVC slip coupling to the other end of the fitting.
5. Apply glue to the exposed end of the pipe being fixed and expand the fitting to its full length, slipping the open end of the coupling over the newly glued pipe end.
6. Let it dry for at least 30 minutes (overnight is better) before turning on water. Don’t replace dirt until you’ve turned on the system to ensure the leak is repaired.
Replacing Short Pop-Ups
If your pipe isn’t deep enough to accommodate the 4-inch pop-ups you want to install to replace the old 1-inch brass version, don’t fret. With equipment such as threaded swing-joint elbows and flexible so-called “funny pipe” and its slip-tight fittings, this can be done without digging all new trenches.
1. Dig a hole beside the existing sprinkler, deep enough to accept the new, longer sprinkler body and wide enough to let you work.
2. Remove the old sprinkler and riser.
3. Use a series of threaded swing joint elbows, or a length of funny pipe and two elbows, to attach the new head to the riser adapter on the existing pipeline. The elbows or flex pipe will make it possible to place the attached sprinkler body alongside the pipe, deep enough so that it won’t stick aboveground.
4. Reinstall the sprinkler head.
Repairing a Riser
1. Dig out from around riser to keep dirt from falling into pipe.
2. Use a riser removal tool to easily unscrew it from the sprinkler pipe. If you don’t have this tool, try a pair of pliers, gripping the top lip of the riser (if it’s not broken off flush with the T-fitting). If no part of the riser sticks up above the fitting, a wide-bladed knife sometimes works. Slip it inside the broken riser until it bites into the sides and turn counterclockwise.
3. Once the broken riser is out of the pipe, remove the other end of it from the base of the sprinkler head, screw a new riser into the T and reinstall the sprinkler.
Cool Tool
A riser removal tool is a threaded, tapered rod with a T-handle. It can be found in the sprinkler department of many hardware or lawn and garden stores.
Repairs Made Easy
The slip-fix fitting is a two-piece, watertight PVC assembly. It’s available in the usual pipe sizes, from one-half-inch to 2-inch; compressed/expanded lengths vary.
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Researched by JOHN O’DELL / Los Angeles Times
