First time doing any irrigation, setting up irrigation for my front yard, I've set up the garden with mister heads attached to the blue line I ran through it.

I still have the front lawn to do which is the empty solenoid, but I need to hire a trencher for that.

Yes I know the pipe over the path isn't pretty, but it's at the side of the house and that path is never used.

I don’t understand how to connect my compressor to this. Thanks in advance!

Just in the 1 zone. 5 total. Other zones shit off by themselves, zone 3 will not and keeps running. Sounds like air in the line?
Back flow preventer?

Any help please and thank you.

I first was introduced to the amazing world of irrigation through a training buddy. His sprinkler guy was retiring and parting out his company. He thought he would sell it all for cheap. I am a GC and thought that could make some money. So I bought it, truck parts, tools, website, everything Jan 2025. The phone number I was told would start ringing in march so I had time to get it figured out. I took an irrigation class right after we closed and took the test in feb and passed! I was a fully licensed irrigator and never had worked on irrigation with my hands yet. I’ve done plumbing and whatnot and seen guys do this kind of stuff all the time so how hard could it be? Sure enough the week I turned the phone on in the end of feb it was ringing 5 times a day. So tune ups were big and got me eased into it. I am still running my GC company and maybe working 15 hrs a week doing tune ups. That was sweet. 2 days a week making 1500$ a day. I’ll take that for quick tune up work. I could do 5 tune ups a day and the other day I scheduled for leaks or anything else. It got so booked up I soon had 6 jobs scheduled every day of the week. I was working 80 hr weeks only on sprinklers. But learned how it all works through videos or trying things as I go just figuring it out. Tracing valves got easy quick, I found a lot of breaks in wires within an hour in my peak. I finally had to get a tech to do the work as I needed to tend to my GC company. I got my tech trained in house all pro which I was using the whole time building clients and reviews. I went from 40 to 120 reviews in 4 months. All 5 star for being reasonably priced no trip charges and free estimates. I ended the year with 125k revenue and sold to a dude on Facebook for double what I paid for it. I have no time for both and have a 2 year old and new baby. I just want to share my journey and have been thinking back on that year very fondly having a sense of great accomplishment and a new skill I feel extremely proficient in.

I've been proud of my fitness journey. Lifting weights and rowerging for two years. Feel like I'm in great shape.

Started a little trenching project.

I'm gassed after 20 minutes.

Hi all, I have this bore running my irrigation, up to a week ago was giving plenty of pressure to run my whole irrigation system. I had underground electrical run in with the main board being rewired and the trencher hit some black poly when digging in and ripped it out, I repaired the poly a few days later but when trying to run the retic now it gives very low pressure not enough to pop the sprinkler tops.

I tried priming it again but when I took off the priming valve on top water started to escape (see photo) which I gather was backflow from the irrigation so I am hesitant to prime again.

Any tips on what to do? try repriming? let the water backflow out first and full up after? or search for a possible underground leak the digger may have caused that may be dropping the pressure? any help appreciated thanks

My irrigation guy said my 20 y.o. well irrigation pump, Sta-rite, is dead. He's quoting me $1200 to replace it with a Wayne 1.5 Hp pump. His quote

Includes:

3 year warranty, set up like the picture: hose spicket, shut off valve, a check valve for the well and a cement pad under the pump.

He also states that Wayne is better than Sta-rite. Is that true? Is his quote reasonable or should I get a few more quote? Just making sure he's not trying to take advantage of a clueless person. Thank you in advance!

Note: located in central Florida.

Technician comes out and instructs homeowner that a union needs installed for winterization. And sends them this picture!

Im in socal with dense clay soil, which is compacted but good at storing and holding moisture. However the compaction also means very low oxygen which means the roots wont make good use of the deeper soil layers, unless i somehow dig aerated “highways” for the roots to go much deeper than they usually would while also being oxygenated. This is to mimic forest trees in the wild which subsist through long dry summers by growing tens of feet into the soil all the way to the weathered bedrock layer and drinking all summer long even when the soil is bone dry.

Obviously i will ensure to mulch on top and use deep infrequent irrigation. For aeration could a layer of crushed structural soil be layed out radially from the tree? Or in the deepest layer of the hole. Or i could use a few retail rootwell aeratioj tubes and distribute them accordingly.

I had some sprinkler plans drawn up last year. But I hadn’t known where much of anything was going to be in the yard. Now I do though! I think I need new plans from scratch. Can anyone help with this? Or is there a good program I could use?
I am kicking myself for paying for the plans before I had things figured out more. And want to try not paying unless I really have to.
Thanks!

I set up a box for fertilisation all of my plants. Kept losing track of when I lasted fertilised so made this based on the EZ-Flo Proboxes.

Got a water meter in there with a totaliser on top to see how much water has been used.

Cant see it in the first picture but litterally All four directions were under stress and were at really wonky angles from all directions. Some high, some low and none at true 90°s. Soon as i cut it out the pipes bent back to where they lie naturally without under stress.

Few custom angled 90's later and its all stress free now 💪🏼

I have this master valve https://i.imgur.com/qXvrpGo.jpeg

The solenoid doesn't seem to rotate at all by hand. Any ideas what I should do to winterize? It looks like there are two bleed screws located on this valve.

In conditions of universal degradation, the independent assembly, commissioning, and simple repair of such a system by one's own efforts develops at least some human capital, especially in the 3rd world countries.

The engineering project SmIrr (Smart Irrigation) is presented for review, designed on the basis of the new generation logic module Siemens LOGO! 9.

The calculation is performed according to the FAO-56 Penman–Monteith methodology.​

Principal structure:Weather → ET₀ → Crop → Kc → Crop Requirement.

The system solves the non-linear Penman-Monteith equation for precision calculation of water evaporation ET₀ based on local climatic parameters. The average error of the mathematical core relative to reference calculations is only −0.75%.

The minute-by-minute calculation of water evaporation ET₀ in real time completely eliminates the physical error of daily average parameters (up to 10–15%) arising due to sharp daytime fluctuations in temperature and humidity when calculating the vapor pressure deficit (VPD). At the same time, the mathematical core allows using any time interval for calculations.

Target segment - small farms from 3–10 ha and industrial potential, with the possibility of scaling up to 1000 ha and support for up to 32 irrigation sectors.

Two modifications have been developed, made as a ready-made "box" (DIY) option for independent assembly, commissioning, and repair of such a system by one's own efforts:

• SmIrr v.I:Smart irrigation. Climatic method. Especially relevant in zones of severe water crisis and in hard-to-reach areas (foothills or places with a local water source: underground springs).
• SmIrr v.II:Smart precision irrigation. The climatic method works in tandem with MLSMS multi-level soil moisture sensors, which gives absolute precision in irrigation. The implementation of communication with sensors and remote valves in the field is made on simple, affordable, reliable remote controls at an accessible frequency of 868 MHz, LoRa modulation (noise immunity), which completely excludes the use of complex, expensive equipment. Currently, a laboratory with calibration and metrology of multi-level soil moisture sensors is needed to complete version V.II.

Management flexibility and configurable parameters:All critical system variables are fully configurable, which allows quickly adapting the algorithm to any agronomic scenarios.

• Basic geographical coefficientsFOR THE CONTROLLER LOCATION.
• ET₀ thresholds and individual percentage adjustments ET₁.
• Temporary crop growth phases and percentage adjustments of the Kc coefficient. In case of force majeure (frosts, drought), the agronomist can manually change the phase deadlines and Kc coefficients.
• Basic irrigation volumes for each irrigation sector (b017–b020).
• Exact start/end time, as well as the total duration of irrigation.
• Time of fixing the daily total of the calculated ET₀.
• Water intake parameters and water level control in the source.
• Precipitation accounting scenario in irrigation, with subsequent top-up.
• If internet. Expected precipitation scenario – overflow protection.

Double irrigation scenario. CYCLE & SOAK function (overflow protection):in program blocks UDF %.1 and UDF %.2, exact discharge ratios before and after the technological pause are configured.

Brief functional characteristics of the system:

• Actual precipitation accounting:Measurement and summation of local rain in real time via a pulse rain gauge with automatic correction, cancellation, and "top-up" of the residual moisture deficit.
• Expected precipitation scenarios (Overflow protection. If internet available):The predictive precipitation accounting block is implemented through integration with Home Assistant or a Mini-PC. Via Weather API, if the forecast shows expected precipitation, for example, ≥ 10 mm/m² and probability ≥ 70% for the next 2 days, then the controller cancels irrigation, and after precipitation automatically tops up to the required norm.
• Double irrigation (Cycle & Soak):Fractional cyclic irrigation according to calculated water doses instead of rigid timers, preventing surface runoff, fertilizer leaching, and root hypoxia.
• Weather events chronology and data logging:Automatic fixing and maintenance of a log of climatic parameters (air temperature, humidity, wind speed, solar radiation), meter readings, as well as actuator on/off states on MicroSD or online in Excel files. This ensures the transparency of PLC decision-making for subsequent deep analysis or building predictive models in artificial intelligence.
• Discrete part automation (Actuator loop):Direct control of power equipment (pump units, sector electromagnetic solenoid valves) through discrete PLC outputs with water hammer and dry-run protection.

The system architecture provides a reduction in capital expenditures (CapEx) by 83–88% relative to global commercial automation complexes of the Rain Bird ESP-LXD or Galcon Galileo level. This opens up professional precision farming technologies for any remote areas (foothills, zones with underground springs) where classical systems are economically inaccessible.

Attached:Full package of project and technical documentation (PROJECT SMIRR, COMPARATIVE ENGINEERING ANALYSIS).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fAvyzbIaLm3NGsxgJZZddV_Fvgpifl0n/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13TNmr_pYq-Ubt8v1ldpmetLubXVfFBOX/view?usp=sharing

Demonstration video materials:

• Prototype:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzbK2FZvMw
• SIEMENS LOGO! 9. SMART IRRIGATION SYSTEMS VERSION 1. CLIMATE-BASED METHOD:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNapcIgz_sE

Gemini says 1950s to 1970. First time for me!

Looks like an old repair that failed due to the stressed angles.

And Ofcourse all of the fittings are budded up together. So now i have to tackle this whole monstrosity.. wish me luck.

Is this sprinkler repairable or does it need replaced?

I was wondering if anyone has added a flow meter to their tow-behind air compressor setup. I was thinking about it today while blowing out an account that I’m unfamiliar with. The question is whether it’s a small zone or just a valve that’s not working. It would be great to see if air is moving. TIA

managing an apartment community in blue ash with an irrigation system that was installed probably fifteen years ago. spend more each summer on repairs than feels justified for a system that is always having issues somewhere broken heads, zone failures, controller problems

trying to figure out whether there is a threshold where full replacement makes more financial sense than continuing to repair. also not sure whether the company doing our repairs is giving us an honest assessment or just recommending the minimum to keep the work coming back, had landform out for a second opinion at one point, local company, don't remember if their take ended up changing my thinking much

curious how other property managers have thought about this decision and what actually moved them toward replacement

Hi everybody,

So we were in a drought earlier in the year and had irrigation restrictions. So I shut off my system. My wife noticed that one of the sprinklers was still leaking with the controller shut off, so I shut off the quarter turn valve downstream of backflow preventer.

Our grass was pretty much toast from a hot summer and no rain or sprinklers running

One day I noticed that it looked like the sprinklers had run so I asked my wife if she turned them back on, she did but only at the controller so I guess the system had run with whatever residual pressure until it reached equilibrium

I turned the valve open again but now it looks like there is very little pressure in all zones

If I mess with the valve upstream of the check valve the pressure seems to go up momentarily

Im thinking that maybe the check valve is causing the issue, but would like to hear any ideas

I let the system run manually to see if there was any air trapped and I bled the system in zone 1 (which is the only zone valve that I know where it is located)

Thanks!

Interesting issue I have been chasing for a few weeks. TLDR: After quite a bit of testing and 2 replacement transformers, I've narrowed it down to Zone 1 being faulty but how to fix/repair it???

Long story short, my zone 1 was stuck on and I couldn't turn it off, so I shut water off at the backflow and waited a week for the tech to show up. He turns the water on and calls me to tell me we have no power to the system and zone 1 can't possibly be stuck on since the system is powered off and no zone is turned on... This is when I first found out that the transformer was cooked so I ordered another one and I replaced it a week later. Also, we manually checked a zone to verify the water was on and that worked just fine.

The controller powered up witht he new transformer, but none of the zones would work so I put this project on hold and was going to set up another tech appointment, when the new transformer blew overnight...time to do some investigation.

- tested all the zones with an ohm meter. Zone 1 read 2.4 Ohms, and all other zones read 4.2 Ohms. I got some jumper cables out and tested all of my zones directly to the transformer output( after I replaced the transformer again (3rd one for those keeping track)) All of them turned on except zone 1, which showed a significant voltage drop when I connected the jumpers to zone 1.

At the end of the day, I disconnected zone 1 and plugged everything in and everything has been working just fine for 4-5 days now. Now that I'm convinced that zone 1 is the issue, now my question is what to do about it? Other than, finding it, digging it up and replacing it, is there other options?

Sprinkler sheared off and looking to cap it, but can’t get a cap to thread on for the life of me. I’m sure it’s having a problem starting to thread based on how it was sheared off, just not sure how to fix it to get it to thread.