Constant Maintenance . . .

Grandson Jamie was over the other day for a couple days.  That means his grandmother gets up early to feed him a sumptuous breakfast before going out.

So she and I were discoursing on the back patio, it was yet to early for the grandson to stir and I noted another sprinkler malfunction.  Our water well produces a very fine sand that eventually wears out the turbo function of the rotating sprinkler heads.  They pop up as usual, that is function of water pressure and they spray, same deal, water pressure.  But it does not move or rotate.  We had a nice green row that indicates some grass is getting a lot of water in one area and lot of grass is not any water, brown out.

So I had to go out and dig up the sprinkler head.  Now knowing about the "constant maintenance" for an irrigation system, I had a spare sprinkler in the garage all ready to go.  Just had to open it up and install it.  I even had a riser that goes from  3/4" to one inch too.  Since I was in the  ground so to speak, it was also time to raise the sprinkler a bit.  So I raised it an inch.  The sod grows around the sprinkler heads and builds up in time.  So if you do not raise the heads, soon you will be spraying the grass close by as the tall grass will inhibit the range of the sprinkler water.

So all went well, I set the sprinkler to full rotation (yeah, I know how to do that now), screwed the new riser into place and installed the sprinkler.  It works just as advertised.

One must observe one's different circuits to make sure things are going like they are supposed to go.  Tiny snails get into spray heads for normal pops.  And normal pop ups also need to be raised too.  In one case I had a large tree root pressing on the sprinkler and the pop feature was not working.  I had to go in a saw off the 2 inch root.  It was a Willow tree root and so was nice and soft and easy to cut.  Put all the sprinkler back in place and it now works just fine.  The tree did not even notice its root being truncated.

So I keep on hand valves, pipes, glue and of course I already have the tools.  I have hack saws to cut pipe, even a hobby knife to trim risers to size, so I am equipped.  I have elbows, unions, and even slip joints in stock.  The irrigation system moves ever so slightly with the soil, so slip joints are good to have around.  It allows for some ever so slight movement.  They keep the soil from pulling the joints apart.

We live on the edge of the desert, semi-arid country.  Most of our city water supply is from man made lakes and some from wells.  So our drinking water is very expensive.  To drill your own irrigation well is pricey at first, but it is amortized in two years.  Thereafter you have to spend a bit to have the pump system tuned up but you are mucho dollars ahead by then.  And your plants and grass loves it (so do the deer).