Library of interesting images and discussion related to
irrigation problems, amateur installations and general poor practices to be
avoided
3 HP Grundfos submersible pump installed
previously by one of our competitors on lake LBJ in a rather interesting
housing. The 2 inch PVC piping had come unwelded (unglued) from the 2 inch
PVC male adapter threaded into the metal pump. Also the electrical wiring was
precariously wrapped around the damaged area and at risk.
How could this job been done more
professionally from the start ? For one, eliminate the male adapter and
secondly use our proprietary PVC connection method. This area where the pump
is fastened to the piping is always a high stress joint that is typically
unsupported so we always "double up" on the strength by roughing the surfaces
and then wrapping the PVC repair with underwater adhesive applied on
composite fiber after the PVC repair was accomplished. This resulted in a
super strong, more trouble free joint.
CARBON TRACES
We've seen much better examples of this phenomena
over the years but unfortunately this is the only one we have a digital photo
of at this time. Notice the black powder like dust on the cover ? This is
evidence of a high voltage event such as a lightning strike. Usually the
black carbon dust is more noticeable. The irrigation controller which was
plugged into this outlet was "toast".
In one case we were called out for a repair
the morning after a thunderstorm had rolled through the previous night. We
witnessed a plug in transformer for an irrigation controller blown completely
out of an electrical outlet about 28 feet across a garage.
An electrician should always be called out to
dissasemble this and any other affected circuits to determine any damage and
repair it.
You will need to look just to the right of the 2 blue capacitors to see
the black carbon on the circuit board
Notice the
turquoise colored oxidation (similar to rust on iron) on the copper wires ?
This electrical connection was discovered inside of one of the most common
"industry accepted" grease caps that are highly touted and claim to protect
irrigation wiring connections from water, moisture and other contamination.
We have discovered corrosion and oxidation inside many of these devices
regardless of whether they used petroleum grease or zinc oxide compounds.
Most all irrigators use these products. We NEVER use these devices. We only use a
proprietary special aerospace industry sealant that is quite expensive but is
"several notches up the ladder" more protective. Although irrigation control
wires typically only possess about 28 volts AC, we even use our special
aerospace industry sealant in 220 volt pump connections 12 feet under lake
water and have NEVER had a callback from any customer for electrical problems
related to the use of this special aerospace industry sealant.
In fact, we are so confidant of our system
we'll "put our money where our mouth is": We offer a $100 cash reward to any
customer who can show us a corrosion or oxidation failure of one our
electrical connections using our proprietary special aerospace industry
sealant.
A Do-It-Yourselfer installed this homebuilt
ORBIT brand manifold system in the basement of a boat slip / lakehouse
(professional irrigation contractors typically do not use this type of
manifolding system).
Notice the haphazard electrical wiring and
all the water leaks over the years contributing to rotted wood and dampness
inside the basement.
Believe it or not, this image above is how we
found the previous owner installed his irrigation controller. This is an
ORBIT brand controller usually found at retail "home centers". Most of the
irrigation parts found at these home centers are the lowest tier that
manufacturers sell to the retail public. These parts don't last as long or
perform as well as professional grade parts installed by licensed irrigators.
Many of our customers who have suffered
through these controllers have commented that they are not very user
friendly. ORBIT products are the butt of many jokes and anecdotes by
professional irrigators, like: "Did you hear the one about the guy who went
into ORBIT just from frustration after wasting his whole morning
unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to program an ORBIT controller when
he should have been out on the golf course with his buddies" ?
The new owner of this particular property had
us install a professional Hunter ICC controller. This ORBIT controller ended
up on the wrong end of the owner's sledge hammer as several years of
frustration were released. You should have seen the smile on his face . .
.
We have seen more improperly installed rain
sensors than we could count on all our fingers. This one was on a rather
large 31 zone residential system in Davenport Ranch, Austin.
What was this installer thinking when he
installed this sensor under the eave where rain could not even reach it
properly ?
Landscapers drove a steel landscape edging
stake right through the irrigation piping underneath. We have witnessed an
enormous amount of damage to underground irrigation systems over the years
from contractors. From tree services dropping limbs to fencebuilders to
landscapers. Too much of their damage was discovered after they already were
paid and had left the jobsite (and then they often disavowed any
responsibility). If you are having any major digging or excavation on your
property it often pays to call your irrigator out to check your entire system
before you pay the other contractor in full.
Although this is supposed to be a library of
images and discussion related to irrigation problems, amateur installations
and general poor practices to be avoided - - - - here is an example of a
properly installed and tested double check backflow device by Ace. Backflow
devices are often used to protect municipal water supply systems from any
potential backwards flow of water from say an irrigation system backwards
back into the main water line in the street where contamination could injur
or even poison someone. Although these situations are quite rare they do
happen and people have died as a result. Because irrigation systems are
underground there is the potential for many cracks and leaks however small
that could allow hepatitus virus, flesh eating bacteria, fertilizer and
herbicide chemicals, etc. to contaminate the system. If low pressure or worse
occurred in the city water main due to a major break, or perhaps firetrucks
pumping from a fire hydrant, a backflow or "sucking on a soda straw"
situation could occur which could then allow contaminated water to flow into
the water main contaminating it. Backflow devices are typically not needed
when raw water such as lake or river water is used for irrigation. This photo
taken before 1 inch of gravel was added.
This is a sororiety house. Notice the water
leak in the asphault drive ? Further examination determined that the drive
had never been properly sleeved. Normally a larger pipe size is installed
under all concrete and asphault drives as a protective sleeve. Then, if an
irrigation pipe fails under a concrete or asphault surface a new pipe can
merely be slid into place and solvent welded on each end. Since no sleeve
existed it became a rather expensive repair. A rocksaw was employed to make
the cut (below), a proper sleeve and a new pressure pipe were
installed.
This is damage caused by a spa / pool company
installation and was not discovered till the contractors had already been
paid and left the jobsite. It was determined the damage was on a single pipe
laid on the underneath side of a mass of pipes. The irrigation repair was
made by excavating deep underneath all the pipe work so that the irrigator
could slither in upside down on his back and examine the underside of the
piping to repair the leak.
On this same property a different contractor
had been employed to construct a new patio slab addition for a large barbeque
pit. Only after he been paid and left was it discovered he had broken
irrigation piping underneath the new slab as water gushed out from underneath
this new slab whenever that sprinkler zone came on. We are still waiting on a
contractor to come out and saw the concrete slab so that repair can be
accomplished.
Further images on the spa / pool company
damage below.
Quite a lot of pipes side by side
What would you guess made this hole ?
This is an image inside a well kept pump house at a
beautiful residence in Wimberley on the Blanco River. We were originally
called out to diagnose the sprinkler system at this property for uneven &
poor coverage. A water well tank with air bladder inside and a multi stage
Goulds pump are visible, the wellhead with the submersible pump underground
are not visible but are located just to the left. The small grey box with
grey cables leading in and out of it is the pressure switch that controls the
booster pump.
This installation was pretty clean, except the
pressure gauge was a "low end" cheap model that was found by our technician
to be defective and we could not locate a decent pressure relief valve for
emergency high pressure situations. We also would prefer that some sort of
"pump protection" device be installed in the event the booster pump exhausted
the water storage tank shown below.
We don't feel it's ethical to make extra money off
our customers having to sell them new replacement pumps when a simple pump
protection device could have saved their pump from damage in the event of a
mishap. Most property owners don't realize that a catastrophic break anywhere
in their house plumbing or in the multiple underground solenoid valves, or
the hundreds of feet of sprinkler system PVC mainline and PVC fittings could
result in the pump running constantly trying to keep the pressure up,
draining the storage tank, and then burning up the pump because it ran dry
(or even intermittently dry). In a "runaway" booster pump situation, the
underground submersible pump typically would not replenish the water storage
tank as fast as the booster pump could exhaust the tank.
On the sprinkler system side a master valve needs
to be installed. If this property is a vacation house (as this one was) pump
protection and a sprinkler system master valve becomes even more
critical.
Just outside the pump house is a 2500 gallon
water storage tank with a internal electrical float switch to control the
submersible pump. Both the domestic water to the house and the sprinkler
system obtain water from this tank.
Notice the tank pressure is shown to be 60
psi at the pressure switch cut out point using a high quality glycerin filled
pressure gauge. The "low end" cheap pressure gauge installed by the water
well company was malfunctioning and falsely reading about 10 psi higher at
around 70 psi. The tank pressure inside the well house was subject to
variation because of the normal method of control which is a pressure switch.
This particular pump pressure switch was set to a 40-60 range. This pressure
variation disturbs the "evenness" or uniformity of how a sprinkler system
applies water to the landscape and yard. We have discovered in most waterwell
fed sprinkler systems, during roughly half of the time the sprinkler system
is watering, the dynamic pressure obtained at the rotary sprinkler heads is
often below manufacturers optimum recommendation due to this cycling of the
pressure switch between low side and high side.
Rarely we discover a multistage booster pump (many
are single stage) in these installations that could provide a high enough
pressure so that a technician could attempt to adjust the range of the
pressure switch higher. But this still does not address the constant cycling
of the pump which reduces their lifespan and sells replacement pumps more
often.
If the pump is
rated to provide a high enough pressure, some of our competitors would just
adjust the pressure switch cycle up to higher levels, but because the typical
default factory settings between cut in and cut off usually range around 20
psi, this method would still result in having the high end cut out at too
high a pressure in order to bring the range up high enough to have the low
end at a level well above the minimum pressure level recommended by the
rotary head manufacturers. Remember there are pressure losses getting from
the pump house all the way to the sprinkler heads often through long
distances of pipe with many fittings and a valve before finally reaching the
sprinkler head. Too high a pressure will result in excessive misting which
results in excessive water loss to the atmosphere and also wind drift
carrying a portion of the water away from the area that is supposed to be
watered. Also, too high of pressure can result in water hammer and water
shock problems everytime a valve closes or the pump operates. Sometimes
faucets and valves in the house start to experience water hammer at higher
pressures. We have seen pumps actually start "jumping" and shaking on their
concrete pads with pressure set too high. Attempting to adjust the pressure
switch to reduce the range between cut in and cut out will result in
unreliable operation of the pressure switch (the factory does not recommend
this) as well as increase the cycling of the pump, reducing pump lifespan
even more.
Be wary of anyone offering so called constant
pressure valves as a solution because they will result in too high of pressure losses and therefore are
not beneficial for obtaining maximum pressure with the most common type of
pump used on most installations.
Solution
? We have developed a proprietary method of controlling the pump
during the sprinkler cycle with the sprinkler irrigation controller that
eliminates this pressure variation and provides the maximum pressure a pump
can build during the sprinkler cycle when it is needed most. It also
eliminates the constant cycling of the pump on and off which increases the lifespan of the
pump, tank bladder, tank, pressure switch, and capacitors. This method does
not disturb the domestic water pressure to the home, rather, during the time
of the sprinkler system operation the domestic water pressure is actually
more constant than with the pressure switch and the pressure is a bit better
than normal.
Back to the problem at hand. We determined that
while reasonable pressure existed at the pump house, rather low dynamic
pressure existed in critical areas, such as shown here on zone #1 which is
comprised of 8 Hunter rotary heads. We have a problem here with low water
pressure at the heads. More technically, there is a rather large variation
between static pressure at the well tank of about 60 psi and dynamic
(working) pressure at the rotary sprinkler zone #1 of only about 27 psi.
Of course, 8 rotary heads on one zone valve is
usually a warning sign that an unlicensed person or do-it-yourselfer had been
involved with the system. It is possible that a zone of 8 rotary heads could
be accomplished using a group of smaller gallonage nozzles so as not to
exceed the design gallons per minute, but in practice we never really see it.
However, the unnecessary use of grey colored low angle nozzles installed in
certain rotary heads on this zone had already started to tip us off as to who
the "wily coyote" was that had probably installed this zone, if not the
entire system.
We excavated around the underground solenoid
valves to determine the pipe size used to feed the valves and discovered that
3/4 inch pipe had been used which is typically too small. This image is the
incoming pressure pipe feeding the valve. As it turns out, the builder drove
up and explained to us that this sprinkler system was an "add to", patch work
over many years and he confirmed our suspicions. He provided critical
information that low and behold much of the work had been done (and
specifically the rotary zone #1 that we diagnosed) by a certain landscape and
sprinkler company out of San Marcos whose previous owners decided to employ
lawyers & litigate to split up their company, and whose vehicles mostly
consist of all white dually trucks.
The original company regularly uses an unlicensed illegal alien as their chief
technician and manager to install and service sprinkler systems.
Caveat emptor.
(slow to load sometimes)
Here is an example of a
well Xtrol water well bladder tank which was installed on a lake pump system
inside of two white plastic bags. Did the installer really believe this was
going to give extra protection from rust ?
These
tanks are usually used in combination with a pressure switch to allow an "on
demand" system to function properly, but this lake pump was already
controlled by the irrigation controller over 300 feet up the cliff which is
the preferred method. However, even though there was a water faucet to
explain why an "on demand" system would be needed there was no evidence that
a pressure switch had ever been installed to control this system.
It is conceivable this
tank could have been installed to protect against water hammer. The tank was
removed since it had rusted
through.
You can see the long
distance rotary head spraying in the background along with the pop -up spray
head in the foreground. This is very bad practice since the small pop-up
spray nozzle puts out about 3X as much water per unit area as the rotary head
and will flood it's area before the rotary head can apply enough water to the
area for the rotary head. Another way of looking at it is if you set the
station to water only 15 minutes for the proper amount of water from the
small spray nozzle then the large rotary head will have irrigated about 1/3
of what is normally needed for it's specific area. Small pop-up spray heads
need to all be on their own zone valve and large rotary heads need to be on
their own zone valve. Never add a small spray head or landscape riser to a
rotary head zone ! Also, drip or trickle irrigation must be on it's own
dedicated zone valve since typically drip must remain on the longest times of
all.
It's always amazing to me how
poorly some contractors will mount a lake pump. This one had only a piece of
irrigation wire and some nylon tie straps holding it to the dock
underneath.
This is a defective pressure
relief valve on a lake pump system which was stuck in the "always open"
position. You can imagine what this does to system pressure when the pump
comes on not to mention the constant loss of the column of water in the
mainline (in between proper check valves) up & down the cliffside
everytime an irrigation cycle is finished. Everytime the pump comes to start
a cycle that column of mainline water must be refilled and it rushes up the
cliffside pushing the air out until it hits the sprinkler heads at high
velocity causing a shock which is not healthy for the pipe, fittings and
heads. This defective pressure relief valve was replaced with a much higher
quality model.
Are you a professional irrigator with interesting images and a story to
tell ? Email us your full name, the images and story and we'll consider
posting them in this library.
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and working more than 150 miles from Austin, TX credits could consist of
business name and/or personal name as you prefer.