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

Which head is the bad one on the line? The first one water would get to? Last one? Does this happen every time you turn off and on the system? What kind of area are these heads spraying.... other side of front sidewalk? Main grass? I ask this one because how do you know they are Tees to each head if you didn't install it.

If your using one of the hose breaker vacume breakers, you just dropped your pressure right down. Have you considered making your point of connection the proper way? Your system will run alot better and more efiicent if you do. And be sure to install a PVB that doesnt restrict so much pressure

this kinda sounds like my problem as well. I posted on the otehr forum but in a nut s****. I have a hose bib system with 4 heads (sorry no back flow preventer..until now) It has been in 2 years and run beautifully. This year I start up and low pressure. I don't know what to do. Help please from some of you experienced experts. The furthest run is about 65' from hose bib to head.

You need a backflow device to prevent water from the irrigation system from getting back into our drinking water.

While I don't know how good they really are for situations like this, it's possible that you have a pressure vacum breaker on the hose bib. While the current code are pretty lacks in our area, the do require these little backflow devices on all hose bibs.

Is there an extra little do-hicky on the end of the hose bib (it's barely larger in diameter than the hose, and maybe 1 inch long if that from what I remember).

There does not seem to be any puddling. Is it safe to say that if I dug down to the pipe and followed it from that good head to the bad one that that is where the problem would be? Also, If when I pull the bad head up and it works fine, dosent that mean there is not a pressure leak? It also does not seem to have a backflow device on the system. When we bought the house in august the system was already working, so I just left it. Stupid move huh!! Why exactly do I need a backflow device and how much are they?

Please tell us you have some type of back flow preventer on that hose bib.

Hmm. You might have a break somewhere because for some reason there is most likely not enough pressure to raise the head up. Are there any wet spots that you can see?

It is probably a little early but i wanted to make sure that everything was working ahead of time. It has been about 58 for a high and like 45 degrees for a low. When I pull up the head it then works fine.

Is it the appropriate time of year to start them?
You could have frozen water in the pipes, or you cracked some heads and/or risers.

There is only one faulty head. How does it perform after you pull it up?

Here is a brief description of my simple system. I have a timer connected to a hose bib that has about 100 ft of poly pipe with tees running to six rainbird surepop 2" pop up fixed sprays. I have plenty of pressure and the system worked great last year. Since this is a simple system I winterized by shopvacing the water out so as not to freeze. I just truned them back on and one of heads wont pop up by itself and the others just bubble until I manually pull the faulty one up, then everything is fine. Is the problem in the head, the body or could this be a line problem. I dont see any big puddling between the sprinklers. Please give any advice you can. Thank you for a great site. Tim, Oregon