Irrigation travails
So I had been noticing that our lawn was getting increasingly brown over the past 7-10 days, but I thought it would just fix itself (why, I don't know). I kept looking for a little water on the patio in the morning, but didn't see it. Finally, this past Saturday, I confirmed that the sprinklers weren't working. 4 out of 6 zones dead, all where my precious new turf was installed only a few weeks ago as part of the firepit finale.
City boys and suburban irrigation projects don't mix well, but thankfully my friend Francis Raquel stopped by and pointed me in the right direction. He's an engineer by trade, and before I knew it, I had the voltmeter out doing testing at various points in the irrigation control circuit to rule out various problems. Even before that, he showed me how to manually open the valves to check if there's water in the system or if the line is broken. Good news was the valves were OK. It was the irrigation control wire that runs in the ground somewhere from our garage to the valves in the bushes in back of our house. Francis and I tested every little wire, to finally determine the problem. I appreciated his disciplined approach to rooting out the problem, something that I might have figured out, but those city genes would have made it take a lot longer.
So a couple of trips to the hardware store (like m&m's you can't have just one trip) and I was installing new control wire, with Alex on my heels, asking if my Dad taught me how to do this. Answer: he's also a city boy. So we got a little bonding time in the bushes with a wire stripper and these neat little wire connectors that have silicone caulk inside them to keep out the moisture in outdoor applications (thanks Francis, for this tip as well).
At the end of the day, I had new control wire installed, and the back sprinklers working like new. Just need to bury the cable (or just hide it), and then deal with the one valve that used to work, but no longer does. The old two steps forward, one step back syndrome. At least my precious grass is getting a daily drink now.
City boys and suburban irrigation projects don't mix well, but thankfully my friend Francis Raquel stopped by and pointed me in the right direction. He's an engineer by trade, and before I knew it, I had the voltmeter out doing testing at various points in the irrigation control circuit to rule out various problems. Even before that, he showed me how to manually open the valves to check if there's water in the system or if the line is broken. Good news was the valves were OK. It was the irrigation control wire that runs in the ground somewhere from our garage to the valves in the bushes in back of our house. Francis and I tested every little wire, to finally determine the problem. I appreciated his disciplined approach to rooting out the problem, something that I might have figured out, but those city genes would have made it take a lot longer.
So a couple of trips to the hardware store (like m&m's you can't have just one trip) and I was installing new control wire, with Alex on my heels, asking if my Dad taught me how to do this. Answer: he's also a city boy. So we got a little bonding time in the bushes with a wire stripper and these neat little wire connectors that have silicone caulk inside them to keep out the moisture in outdoor applications (thanks Francis, for this tip as well).
At the end of the day, I had new control wire installed, and the back sprinklers working like new. Just need to bury the cable (or just hide it), and then deal with the one valve that used to work, but no longer does. The old two steps forward, one step back syndrome. At least my precious grass is getting a daily drink now.
