Cables, Coffee, Cycles, and Cocktails

[babadono]

Some of my handiwork over the last couple weekends. I referred to earlier about putting in a pressure regulator. Decided as long as I was digging a hole in solid rock I would put any and all further needed irrigation valves in. Can you tell which valves were put in by the homeowner(me) and which were done by the hired help? I'm going to tear his crap out and do it my way, the pipe store just did not have enough unions for me to get'er done yet.

[CECAA850]

What's code where you live for the back flow preventer height (and where is it?)

EDIT, is there one on every run?????????  Check valve anywhere??

[dirtmudd]

6 hours ago, Tarheel said:

Cup #1 !

 

 

[babadono]

15 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

What's code where you live for the back flow preventer height (and where is it?)

EDIT, is there one on every run?????????  Check valve anywhere??

Yes there is an anti-siphon on each sprinkler valve. Don't know if they sell'em any other way out here. And there is a back flow preventer for the whole she-bang just my side of the water meter which I have the privilege of paying $50 every year to get "checked".😠

[CECAA850]

6 minutes ago, babadono said:

Yes there is an anti-siphon on each sprinkler valve. Don't know if they sell'em any other way out here. And there is a back flow preventer for the whole she-bang just my side of the water meter which I have the privilege of paying $50 every year to get "checked".😠

Here the anti siphon valve is typically set up with one big one for the whole system.  It has to be 12" higher than the highest sprinkler head which are normally the ones used on bushes.  Back flow preventers are normally the double valve type.

 

Your work looks nice!

[CECAA850]

10 minutes ago, babadono said:

Yes there is an anti-siphon on each sprinkler valve. Don't know if they sell'em any other way out here. And there is a back flow preventer for the whole she-bang just my side of the water meter which I have the privilege of paying $50 every year to get "checked".😠

Also here the valves are normally distributed around the yard as opposed to clustered in one spot.  You use a lot less pipe that way.

[babadono]

13 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

Also here the valves are normally distributed around the yard as opposed to clustered in one spot.  You use a lot less pipe that way.

Yea but that's in Texas where things prolly make sense

Growing up in Michigan no one had built in irrigation. It rained often enough it just wasn't necessary or you put a "sprinkler" on the end of your hose when needed. Then moving out here this clustering of valves is the only way I've seen it done, never thought much about it.

[CECAA850]

13 minutes ago, babadono said:

Then moving out here this clustering of valves is the only way I've seen it done, never thought much about it.

Well, it IS California after all.

[dtel]

2 hours ago, CECAA850 said:

Also here the valves are normally distributed around the yard as opposed to clustered in one spot.  You use a lot less pipe that way.

I have to say after doing this for many years what you said is exactly what they teach you to do and wholesalers say. BUT I always went the other way even though it uses much more pipe.  i always did exactly as Babadod did for good reason (in my head at least). Only difference was everything was underground with the same kind of boxes in the picture.

 

Every time we went to buy supplies for each job they would try and talk me into spreading out the solenoids around the yard and I would just say i would rather do it like this, they thought I was nuts. Finally after about a year of going through this i asked him if i tell you why will you not ask me again and just sell me what I want ? He laughed and i told him, you want me to run one main line out into the yard and branch off of that with individual lines  with a solenoid to each zone,  who is going to be the idiot who has to trace down electrical or solenoid problems with a shovel trying not to mess up any of the other wires or pipes if there is a problem ? Or do you all do that as a service for buying everything here, of course he said NO we don't do that.

It's hundreds of feet of pipe with one wire with as many strands as I need for the job all low voltage and tiny which break easily. I do it this way so I have short runs to the main valve junction area a few feet from the house that I cover with these boxes I buy everytime I buy supplies, in 1 minute I can check every connection and valve and I don't need a shovel. 

 

The customer is going to call me first and I have to find out the problem, I am the idiot that will have to fix it and the way i do it I can change anything easily. Being low voltage the only problem I have had electrically is the ground, these control boxes and solenoids are very sensitive to a ground problem. The wire nuts made for this helps alot but nothing is perfect, these wire nuts had dielectric grease in them and a little cap at the bottom, being underground I have seen the holes fill with water at times and still have no problems.

 

Backflow preventers in Louisiana and Mississippi had to be above ground level as Carl said but no mandatory inspections but they could come around at any time, and nothing else was needed like anti-siphon on the solenoids. We would just put one inline right where it left the house and was easy to see and convert to PVC after the valve. I wouldn't want to be a contractor in California anyway, everything is odd to put it nicely.

 

The wholesaler we alway dealt with was Ewing, mostly because had everything we needed and if we were busy and they would deliver either to our house or the job, sometimes we would get the pipe delivered to the job and everything else to the house if we were not going to be on the job when they delivered. This was easier because we only bought 20' pipe and i would have to drag the trailer 30  minutes to them to pick up everything. And it was free to deliver, but we were buying everything from them which really adds up doing irrigation on almost every job.

 

One other thing for anyone thinking about doing this, NEVER do what they use to call pipe sizing which is where you start out with one size pipe and reduce it down much further down the line  toward the end They suggested this and i tried it at first and if done right it does not affect performance at all and slightly lowers cost. But what it does do is making ordering parts and even installing much more a headache, you have all these different size fittings to deal with, one job like that and never again, all 1" from then on. And buy irrigation pipe and not regular pipe, the ID of the pipe is bigger allowing more volume and besides when designing systems it's what is used for pressure and flow calculations for zones and coverage at different volumes and pressures. 

 

I know this is long already sorry about that, but it's also where i found a pair of original Forte's they had playing into the warehouse,a customer gave them. Asked if they wanted to sell them and he said no, I said if there are what I think they are I would give you $500 right now, he said let me get a ladder. It turned out to be the original version and i explained. Gothome and thought about it and called him back and said it's not what I was looking for but I will give you $300, he said come get them and we did that day.

[CECAA850]

14 minutes ago, dtel said:

who is going to be the idiot who has to trace down electrical or solenoid problems with a shovel trying not to mess up any of the other wires or pipes if there is a problem ?

If done properly there is a little green circular cover on each box that holds a solenoid.  They're easy to find if done correctly but just like anything else, it all depends on how much care the installer put into the job.

[dtel]

That's true but if there is a problem with a wire it's a real headache. I usually just bought a whole roll of like 18 or 20 strand wire. As you go out into the yard you strip off one set of wires and go to the solenoid,this is done for each zone, these wire follow the trench with the main line all the way to the last zone. If there is a problem anywhere down the whole run it's very possible a small ditch would have to be redug to fix or replace all the wire or just a piece. 

 

It's ok if it's your yard your going to be careful where you dig later, customers are not so careful. Now multiply that by how many systems were put in in 20 years,it could get out of hand very quickly. We always gave good service, we would never charge anything if there was a problem even years later, we gave a 5 year warranty on everything as it was, the distributor thought we were crazy for doing this, but if you do it right from the beginning you have very little problems. About the only problem would be an occasional lawnmower catching a head and this was pretty rare. 

We bought so many supplies from that company they would send us promotional stuff, I still have a long sleeve jean shirt with there logo on it,after all these years of not doing it they still send us catalogs and other industry magazines and books with all the new spec's and products, still have  an account with them to buy things when wholesaler when I need something. They gave us a great price on pipe, but I bet I bought 10,000 feet over the years, maby more I should have kept tract. I still have hundreds of PVC fittings  and probably 12 garden heads left over, I use all the yard heads around here. 

It was fun but probably less so now that I am old, well at that pace anyway.

[babadono]

1 hour ago, dtel said:

the only problem I have had electrically is the ground

OMG not another "ground" problem

[babadono]

Just one small tidbit extra, Here in CA with our suck azz water quality I know the valves will fail. There is no doubt. That's why I put in a union on both sides of the valves. When it fails, undo the wires and unions. Unthread the union halves from bottom of failed valve, install into new valve. Reattach unions and wires, ur done 5 minutes.

[dtel]

Good idea with the unions, not so much of a problem here at all, most homes we did were on well water or city well water, maby a little sand at the worst and I never had any problems because of that.

 

Really I don't remember ever changing a solenoid, did get a loose ground once or twice and one bad control box once that's about it. I have a control box here I use  that's probably 25 years old and so are the heads I have. We always bought the outdoor control boxes since they were made better, even if they were going in the garage. 

 

Now since we did landscaping I have an area about 30' x 40' that I have pipes above ground about 4' to reach over pots/plants as we held some plants between the nursery to the job. There are 3 separate grass heads  on these pipes with a ball valve on each pipe so i can only use parts if needed, now I have forgot and had water in the heads when winter came and they cracked and were done as I found out in spring. But in the ground even at normal depth they never freeze here.

 

 

[dtel]

7 hours ago, babadono said:

Still not a K402 although I think it really wants to be

Very true but it is a good looking speaker, not that I would trade.

[dirtmudd]

1 hour ago, babadono said:

Just one small tidbit extra, Here in CA with our suck azz water quality I know the valves will fail. There is no doubt. That's why I put in a union on both sides of the valves. When it fails, undo the wires and unions. Unthread the union halves from bottom of failed valve, install into new valve. Reattach unions and wires, ur done 5 minutes.

What water ?

[dirtmudd]

7 hours ago, babadono said:

Still not a K402 although I think it really wants to be

 

25 minutes ago, dtel said:

Very true but it is a good looking speaker, not that I would trade.

The k 402 wants to be the multicell !

And the speaker was made in the 40's... And made from wood !

 

So it just shows you that we have not advanced in speaker technology..

 

just cheap re cycled soda bottles..

 

 

melted mold injected plastic horn...

 

 

And your not even talking about these !

 

[dtel]

1 hour ago, dirtmudd said:

The k 402 wants to be the multicell !

And the speaker was made in the 40's... And made from wood !

 

So it just shows you that we have not advanced in speaker technology..

 

just cheap re cycled soda bottles..

 

 

melted mold injected plastic horn...

 

 

And your not even talking about these !

If it only sounded like the 402 you would onto something, but it does not, they have one of those in the museum. 

[dirtmudd]

1 minute ago, dtel said:

If it only sounded like the 402 you would onto something, but it does not, they have one of those in the museum. 

Do the flagship bose 901's sound like

A pair of klipschorns  ?

[dtel]

1 minute ago, dirtmudd said:

Do the flagship bose 901's sound like

A pair of klipschorns  ?

I doubt it but to be honest it's been 30 years since a good friend had some and they were in his pool room, which meant when I heard them I was probably pretty messed up.

But at one time I wanted some badly, glad I got past that.