Irrigation Systems

It was time to tune up the system. Before we left for New Roads we had to get a sprinkler head because the old one was stuck in one location. It is the rotary kind where the water flow powers the gears that turn the sprinkler. In this case, the gears had given up the ghost (or the propeller system, whatever). You can hear the gears when rotating the top back and forth, it hits the stop and does all that stuff okay but does not rotate. Got to be innards not functioning correctly.

I tried soaking the head in white vinegar to remove the scale but I guess the fine sand in the water system wore it out. Anyway, the vinegar soak did not work.

Now I have winnered the sprinkler heads down from $20 to $10 a pop. I found the outer cases are identical, the tool for adjustment and the instructions are the same but different manufacturers and prices. So all I had to do was set up the sweep area and put it in the old cases already in the ground. So far so good, the replaced unit is working just fine and I have a spare.

But this led to investigating the other dry/brown areas. In most cases, the pop up sprinkler heads had small snails in the sprinkler head. They seek the water as tiny animals and stay in place and grow. This distorts the sprinkler pattern. I have a tool very much like an old ice pick. I crush the snails and fish them out with the tool. I also remove the heads and clean the filters. It is very surprising how much crap collects on the sprinkler filters. Pieces of tape, dirt of course and other small pieces of gravel (from the well ???).

Any rate, there were a couple of pop ups that were not popping up. Had to clean those up and swap a couple of them out.

Now I have to check some of them for their pattern. I need one that goes three quarters around. The only one I can find is an adjustable one and it refuses to remain adjusted correctly. I'll find, I just keep looking until I do.

Any the dry spot out front is now covered from three different sprinklers. Pretty soon it will turn green, just needs water.

Keep on trucking . . .