Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Anyone have a lawn irrigation/sprinkler system

Alright, another "new to us" house question. We have never had lawn irrigation before, but something seems to be missing from the picture below. The pipes had heavy plastic taped over the ends. Definitely something is missing, but what?

If that line is supplied by city or county water I'd guess maybe it was where the meter was located (if required). Only a guess though.

Are all of the indexing valves in place? I presume the Hunter box should be either a digital or manual timer for the valves.

Like Rick, my guess would be a water meter if you are on city water. Some cities charge different rates for irrigation usage (possibly coupled with time of day/week/month stipulations). Call your utility and ask.

The Hunter box is definitely the timer. They are usually pretty easy to understand and you might even be able to find a manual online. Otherwise, any landscaper who does irrigation systems should be able to help you learn how to use it. If you are not a DIY person you will be calling him regularly to repair leaks, replace heads, etc.

Not sure about the climate in IA, but if your sprinkler lines in the ground are not below the frost line then remember to have the system purged every fall to prevent burst pipes. This involves a guy (usually the landscaper who services the system) coming to your house with a big honker air compressor and blowing the water out of the system.

Ahhh.... A meter... That would make sense. Let me call up the city water dept. and find out.

Supposidly, they had it purged before this past winter, so hopefully we are OK. I've never had one of these, but it will be nice for those super dry months in Iowa. I won't run it like some people do, but at least it is there and I won't have to hook up a sprinkler to a hose and move it around the yard.

Makes sense. But a more fun use would be to use it as an input to inject pressurized food coloring into the stream. Wait until a day after your family has watched a good horror movie and are hanging out in the back yard then begin spraying blood colored water everywhere.

Actually, I'm not normally that morbid. My first thought was to use a really bright, green coloring just to make your neighbors wonder what the heck you were spraying but that made me think of radioactivity and I was afraid it would be interpreted as in poor taste, given the crisis the poor folks in Japan are enduring.

So you went with a bloodbath, naturally.

Hi,

I'm going to assume that the pipe coming out of your house has already run through the meter (just a guess). Since you're in IA I'm going to assume your meter is in your basement (to eliminate freeze up) and it's for your entire house (maybe not?).

Now assuming that, I do notice something that is missing in your picture. And that is a Back Flow Prevention valve. Mine is between the pipe coming out of the house to the pipe going to the sprinklers. Those are required here in ND. Check with a sprikler installer in your area.

Hmmmm.... More to inquire about. Thank you.

Oh, and the "blood-water" idea had me laughing at work this morning. The guy in the office next to me came over to ask what was so funny.

He didn't get it.

If the water for the irrigation is supplied by the local municipality and is plumbed accordingly from up side of the main meter there *could* be two water meters, the house main meter and an irrigation meter. The reason that the irrigation is metered separately from the main house supply meter is so that you do not pay for sewer charges for the irrigation water.

And yes there should be a backflow preventer to keep the irrigation water from backflowing to the main water supply.

Nick, if the space is indeed for a meter you probably need to contact the county or whomever supplies your water to request an irrigation meter, they will inspect to make sure all connections, backflow preventers are within code and correct.

If your water is supplied by a well (I doubt it, the lines are much too small) then disregard my assumption that the empty space is for a meter.

Alright, I had a call into the city, who just took a message and hasn't gotten back to me yet, so I zoomed in on another photo I had and was able to pull enough of the name of the install company off of the control box to give them a call....

And the winner is.............

It is the space for the Back Flow Preventer. The irrigation company removed it last October when they were there to blow out the lines. They also happen to have stored it at their site since the current home owners don't live there and the house is currently vacant.

They are required by city law to re-certify the BFP every spring, so I get to look forward to a yearly $50 bill for that to be done, but they will also reinstall it "for free" and then be there to check everything out to make sure that all of the sprinkler heads are working, etc... I was told that 1-2 heads will be damaged about every year as well, so there is more $$$. Then of course there is the annual fall BFP removal and blowing out of the lines. I have no idea how much that costs...

Maybe my $10 sprinkler and hose wasn't so bad after all....

(nah, I am sure that I will like having it, but I had no idea of the maintenance part of it).