Yard / DIY guys / plumbers - Lend me your ears

[Redrig]

Hey everyone ,

I have a Yard question for you guys and frankly I don't have the energy to start on another forum and I know folks on here are sharp.

This is regarding my sprinkler system . My back yard lawn is struggling this year and my sprinklers don't have the coverage they once did.

So I hook up a pressure gauge to my front yard , backyard , and water heater bibs And on all of them I have 85 ish psi

If I turn on a sink or shower it drops maybe 10

Turn on my front yard sprinklers , it drops maybe 5 ,But front yard sprays great . From what I can tell , the front sprinklers don't run through the house , it's split from the main so not affected by house

Now the back yard . I turn on my smallest zone and it drops to 35 ! Ouch . No wonder I am getting no coverage .

Right now I have those old style gates type valves . One for the main house shutoff , and the other for my back yard sprinklers .

My thought is that is too much drop from 80 psi and these valves are restricting flow ....... Do you think I would not get so much drop if I swapped in ball valves ?

They worked better a few years ago , maybe my valves are clogged or something ?? Thoughts

I have messed with regulator and can't get higher than 80-85

Please excuse brevity I am on my cell

Thanks

 

[bruceb58]

My sprinkler system is on its own regulator and it is before the regulator that goes to the house. Its lines are sized so I get very little pressure drop.The house is on its on 55 PSI regulator and sprinkler system is on a separate 90 PSI reg. If your house regulator is giving you 85PSI, that is WAY too high. Any of your faucets drip?

 

[Redrig]

No , no leaky faucets or exploding toilets .
My problem is that my back yard runs through the house plumbing which is all through that regulator . So if I drop that my backyard is really screwed

 

[Redrig]

Don't those old style valves basically have a 90 in them ?

I am thinking that maybe my pressure is fine , maybe too high as you point out , but my flow rate is garbage . And that is what is really killing the backyard .

 

[bruceb58]

It is very possible your valve in the back yard could be an issue. It could also be pipe diameter as it goes through the house and hits where your sprinklers tap off though.

 

[fhhuber]

My back yard lawn is struggling this year and my sprinklers don't have the coverage they once did.

Something changed...

This sounds like maybe something with the sprinkler valves or heads getting plugged up.

 

[mjf55]

since your backyard is running thru your house, is there a filter for your house system that needs changing? I know if I do not change / clean my filters every 3 months, the water flow is poor.

Are you on a well system or 'city' water. If well, then you may be pumping up sand ( as I do, and its my strainer that really takes a hit) and maybe your water tank is filling up with crap.

 

[jbcurt00]

....... If your house regulator is giving you 85PSI, that is WAY too high. Any of your faucets drip?

Yep, 85psi is too high, esp going into a hot water heater.

If something has changed w back yard coverage, something has changed w shut off valve, pressure, pipe inner diameter or at the sprinkler heads, specifically what, IDK....

 

[Maclin]

I would suspect a leak somewhere between the supply and the first sprinkler head. Do you winterize this by having a service blow out the lines each year? Maybe they left something open or something froze and broke. One year my sprinkler guy left the tops of the valves open for some reason after working on them, not related to winterizing, but huge water bill that month and disappointing coverage.

 

[Grub54891]

You have a gate valve, could it have detached itself from the handle, partially stopping the flow? Ball valves won't do that, gate valves will. Usually with a gate valve you can remove the upper part where the handle is and inspect it. With the water shut off....

 

[Redrig]

Thanks for all of these responses , I was reading them on saturday as I was going through my pipes and checking all of the sprinkler heads .

Huber - The only that has changed in the system recently is that my municipailty last summer switched from those manual meters that they had to read to those newer style with the puck thing on top that they point a laser at to get the meter reading .

mjf - good thinking , I am on city water and not well water so I have no filters that I know of - other than the sink screens

Maclin - I do the winterizing every year and in the main line going to the back yard I plummed in a port that I can run compressed air through each zone individually and I dont see any signs of any soggy areas.



Here is where I am now .

I left the pressure gauge on my water heater overnight , the gauge has one of those "high water mark" second needles so that you can see what it maxed out at , overnight my house hit 100.

Saturday went through and made sure that none of my spinkler heads were clogged up , I did find one that had some crap in it , but nothing major . I then swapped out both of my gate valves for ball valves , this helped dramatically . My lowest PSI zone in the back is now at 45 when running and the flow is much better .

I have 4 inch pop up sprinkler heads and on most of my zones , you could tell that they were not popping up all of the way previously . After the ball valve swap they are all popping up to the max now and my coverage is much better now .

but I still have too much pressure coming into the house , after the ball valve swap there was noticable changes in both of my showers , they are like fire hydrants now so I have to find a way to reduce the pressure into the house without droppping it too much that it impacts my back yard sprinklers , because they are rocking and rolling now .

heres my theory , when they changed the main shutoff valve and meter at the street , some debris must have made its way in and kind of clogged my gate valves.

 

[bruceb58]

You need to change your regulator. House pressure needs to be 60PSI MAX.

 

[Redrig]

yeah , the plan now is to mess with the regulator and get the PSI more in line with that 60 number .

so my plan is to turn on a zone in my back yard and take a careful note of how far its spraying , ect . Then start cranking down the regulator to see the point at which it starts to reduce the spraying on that zone , hopefully I can reduce to 60 with no impact on back yard

 

[bruceb58]

If your PSI creeps up with no flow on it overnight, your reg is bad and you need to replace it.