SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

I would go a head and replace everything above the elbow. No need to swap out fittings, if you are allowed to have PVC supply lines in your area, swap everything over to PVC. Make sure you install a shut-off while your at it for the irrigation system. You should do that first, so you can get the water turned back on to the house while you work on everything else.

I hope the metal pipes are copper, because what you really need to do is get rid of those male conections going into female PVC.

Your replacement valves will be made of plastic/PVC, and you never want to insert metal males into plastic females. (This might be the source of your leak to begin with). What is needed is to cut the copper males out and soilder new female connections in their place. You can then get Sch80 nipples to connect the female pipe to the female valve.

If you've never "sweated" copper tubing, it's easy enough to learn. Plenty of resources on line and your local hardware store. Get a few pieces of scrap copper and a few copper fittings and do a couple of practice tries. If you do try to sweat your own copper pipes, I'd suggest getting either torch with an adjustable tip to make the best heat you can from Propane, or for a few dollars more, you can use MAPP gas instead (burns hotter).

So it sounds like you can either spend $300 paying someone else to do this, or $200-$300 and teach yourself and even install a shutoff to the irrigation while you're at it.

I'd say spend the money, if you get a good controller and a separate shutoff valve for the system. You should already have one of those. The new valves should also be antisyphon types. You aren't likely to save much more than a hundred or so doing it yourself, and you could shut down your entire house's water supply if something goes wrong.

Thanks for the feedback. My valves are pretty old so I'd prefer to change the whole thing. They're beginning to leak on both ends, so I didn't want to replace just part of it.

I should probably clarify on the "lossening" direction. I've got a metal pipe, threaded on both ends. The top goes into the valves (also metal). The bottom goes into a PVC elbow and the rest of the system is all PVC. So now that I think about it, I can't really turn the pipe either way because it may loosen at the valve, but then that would be tightening at the elbow, right?

So is it better to cut the PVC below the elbow, then replace the elbow, change the pipe connecting to the valve to PVC? I haven't done this before, so I wanted to know how tricky this would be. I'd have to shut off my water supply at the main meter so if I screw up, I'm in deep doodoo.

A gardner offered to change the whole thing to automatic and put in the timer for $300, but it's just two valves and a pretty short line to the garage, so I was hesitant to pay that much. Then again, given that I can't shut the water supply to my sprinklers separately, it might not be worth the risk to mess things up.

Any more thoughts? Thanks!

You can just remove the part of the antisyphon valve with the flow-control handle, and replace it with an electric 'valve adapter'

If you are looking down at something from the top, counter clockwise would be loosening it. righty tighty, lefty loosey...You may have to cut the valves out and glue or solder new fittings into place.

I've got 2 manual antisiphon valves I want to replace to change them to automatic. They're 1" and have a metal male threaded pipe going into them. The other end of the 4 metal pipes are threaded and go into a PVC elbow.

My problem is that they've been on there for probably 15 years and I can't seem to remove the valves, as all of the pipes are pretty much stuck on there. I've been trying an 11" pipe wrench, but nothing seems to budge. I'm pretty sure I'm trying to loosen the pipes in the correct direction (clockwise, when looking from the top) as I'm able to semi-loosen one of the outlet pipes, but the other 3 just won't budge at all. I've tried WD-40 as well.

They're in a difficult spot to get good leverage on and I don't want to bust the pipes. Any suggestions?