Irrigation System

We have lived in this house for three years and every summer we have had to replace something in the irrigation system. We didn't pay that much attention to it until this year. When we had a lot of things break in it. So as my husband was digging in the front yard to fix the irrigation, he discovered that most of the pipe had not been buried correctly. As he kept digging the trench, he discovered that the pipe was only buried three inches deep and was not slopped correctly. The pipe was sloped to the highest point with a drain back valve, which was plugged because they didn't put it in and gravel.

After seeing that mess in the front he had to dig the whole system up and fix the slopes, but new drain back valves on it and dig a lot of it deeper. It took about two months to do because we wanted to reuse the pipe, so he had to dig the trenches by hand. Wish was kind of hard to do because the ground was packed solid by clinkers. One of the previous owners of the house used the whole back yard and garden area as a trash dump, and a place to put the clinkers from the old coal furnace.

We are so glad that this project is now down. I didn't even think to take pictures to show the stupidity of whoever put the pipe in only three inches deep. When you are digging a trench that will house pipe, you want to make sure that it is 6 to 12 inches deep and that the pipe slopes to the lowest point in your yard with a drain back valve buried in gravel.