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Valve Lifetime

tkelly

New Member

Posts: 2

Location: USA

1

Sunday, April 25th 2004, 2:14pm

Valve Lifetime

<font size="2"></font id="size2"><font face="Arial">My sprinkler system is vintage 1992, featuring four zones in front year and five in back, each with a separate conroller box featuring RainBird DV100 valves. The system works pretty well. I had to replace one valve bonnet, solenoid and diaphragm about five years ago, but that's it.

I have one leaky valve now which I am about to clean out. But ... I'm wondering if I'm about due to replace the valves or at least all the diaphragms.

What's a reasonable life-expectancy for such a system?</font id="Arial">
/tk

aquamatic

Advanced Member

Posts: 230

Location: USA

2

Monday, April 26th 2004, 3:41am

They say 15 Years if maintained properly!

tkelly

New Member

Posts: 2

Location: USA

3

Monday, April 26th 2004, 3:50am

<font face="Arial"></font id="Arial"><font size="2"></font id="size2">Thanks for the reply.

What's driving me on this now is I have one valve which is leaking. I've gone through a thorough cleaning and it's still leaking. It's an old valve which doesn't have a bleed screw on it.

I'm figuring that my next step is to replace the top (bonnet, solenoid, diaphragm). It's a huge hassle to replace the whole valve. And I figure if I'm doing one, why not replace all of them.

Do you think just replacing the tops would be sufficient? And if it's still leaking after I've cleaned it thoroughly, is replacing the bonnet, solenoid and diaphragm a good course of action?

Thanks.

/tk

aquamatic

Advanced Member

Posts: 230

Location: USA

4

Monday, April 26th 2004, 8:23am

Absolutely! If the valves you have are still on the market. Get the same ones and just insert the top half into the valve. No need to change the entire valve unless its leaking.

bobw

Advanced Member

Posts: 101

Location: Canada

5

Wednesday, April 28th 2004, 6:21pm

You might still be able to find replacement valves even if they aren't manufactured anymore; check with the distributor who sold them originally, they often have a stockpile of "obsolete" equipment in a back room somewhere. I'm still able to get 10-15 year old valve replacements from those back rooms...

radical

Active Member

Posts: 31

Location: USA

6

Sunday, March 5th 2006, 7:36am

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tkelly</i>
<br /><font size="2"></font id="size2"><font face="Arial">My sprinkler system is vintage 1992, featuring four zones in front year and five in back, each with a separate conroller box featuring RainBird DV100 valves. The system works pretty well. I had to replace one valve bonnet, solenoid and diaphragm about five years ago, but that's it.

I have one leaky valve now which I am about to clean out. But ... I'm wondering if I'm about due to replace the valves or at least all the diaphragms.

What's a reasonable life-expectancy for such a system?</font id="Arial">
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Richard Kersten

S&R Sprinkler Systems and Landscaping, Inc.
Destin, Florida

lush96

Advanced Member

Posts: 138

7

Sunday, March 19th 2006, 5:49pm

15 years is top value. valves are like anything else. they should last a while but anything could happen. you have gotten quite a bit of use out of yours. if you change a valve you should change the entire valve. "gutting" works sometimes but its way more reliable to put brand new valves in. if your gonna do something.....do it right.
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