water shooting out from ground!

bbzoe

Hey everyone,

I tried turning on the sprinkler system which I just found today (been renting for over a year ) and water came shooting out of the ground about 10 feet away from me. I dug up the spot and this is what I saw.

and

and


any idea what this was supposed to be? Can I put a sprinkler on it or should I cap it? Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

gregzoll

Looks like a cap. Just cut off the el and get a glue on cap and be done. Probably had a head there at one time.

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bbzoe

could a put a head there if I wanted? That is the only "thing" in the back yard that I know of and It would be nice to use it.

bbzoe

That little part sticking out from the L was called a riser. I was actually able to unscrew it and I just brought it to Home Depot. I'm going to put a sprinkler on it and hope everything works.

pls8xx

Turning on a sprinkler system without knowing it's condition can result in a nasty surprise water bill.

sdsester

To say nothing about creating a quiet erosion problem you did not expect.
I am almost willing to guess that riser was not for a sprinkler but was providing some sort of remote hose bib so people didn't have to drag hoses around the yard? Was there only one valve and what did it look like? I wonder if it was the cut-off for that water supply line and not an irrigation valve. An irrigation valve in most places should have anti-syphon and anti-backflow properties for the safety of your home water supply and to meet code.

It would be weird to have an irrigation system with only one sprinkler unless you have a little postage stamp yard situation.

You do need to check things out before trusting an old system. Risers break all the time though so you may be able to tap what you have and build a nice drip system for shrubs and flowers. You will want to map out a turf system though. If it was a riser for a hose bib (I would have specified one to go into a below ground box) it should have had some rebar to support it.

Can you provide pics of the valve or valves and a description of how large the yard? And you might want to edit your profile to provide a basic location. That looks awfully shallow to me so hope you are in California or something where you do not have soil freezing problems.

bbzoe

wow lots of information! I'm in Miami so definitely no freezing here or the world is coming to an end lol. I found some old and slightly dry rotted drip tubing (spaghetti) around it, but the only thing I saw it going to was some established bamboo that I don't really care about anyways. Also the area I live in is on a coral bed so you can't easily dig deep. When I dug the wholes up 50% of it was rock/coral. There is a shut off valve near the automatic timer, but a tree has grown so close I can barely turn it. What is in the little green circle "boxes" in the ground with the wires?

I got the sprinklers installed with no problem, but now the timer thing on the wall isn't working when I put it to those zones. When I was randomly looking around for a way to fix it I turned a very little nob in those green boxes and they came on manually. Oh yeah one zone did work while I was fixing a head, but when I tried to put in on the other zone both zones stopped working.

I don't know what zones 1 and 4 do so I haven't been running them and there are only two of those boxes.

sdsester

Again without pictures I do not know how to help you.

Irrigation valves have manual bleed screws that allow you to bypass the timer and solenoid acuator.

It sounds like solenoids may need replacing. Hopefully you have anti-syphon/backflow preventers on the valves also. The diaphrams in them may need to be replaced as well.

Diagnosing or making such a shallow irrigation system work can keep you up at night. As mentioned in one of the first posts, that broken riser may be the least of your problems,