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

Well, I spent the day examining a site I have a maintenance contract with. It's a community college here in the metro. For the last couple years, they have been busy with new construction expanding the buildings. Needless to say, 1 of the 4 systems was hacked up pretty good.

The construction is now complete and the contractor the general used for the system repair is also complete. WOW!!! What a hack job! He turned a 12 zone system into 29 zones, and still didn't cover everything. I anticipate having to install an additional 3 zones making the total 32 zones. 32 zones to cover what 12 zones did only 2 years ago. If you've never seen a 1" valve on a 3" main, I recommened it, its cute.

But, to my question. The contractor converted the system to a Hunter 2wire system. My knowledge of 2wire is limited to replacing decoders and splicing wire. Being that he left so much water unused (25 gpm zones from a 3" main at 72 psi static) I figured I would just double or triple up the zones. After reading the Hunter manual, it doesn't sound as though that's possible. Saying that having 2 or more decoders with the same address can cause problems. I read something about Hunter Duo? But not sure if that's my solution. Anybody run across this?

I may just end up pulling in multi strand wire. 6 drip zones on a 3" main, what was this guy thinking?!?!

I called tech support the other day and they responded that they ran a test and were successful in getting two decoders to operate using the same address. They also said it was a lab experiment and they cannot guarantee success in the field. They are now in the process of running a test to see if using the DUO product would allow operation of 4 decoders.