Sprinkler System

[bradford702]

It seems during the winter the pipe running under my front entry driveway busted and is leaking water. I discovered this today when i turned on the sprinklers for the first time this year. So how do I find the pipe? My driveway sits at about a 15 degree up hill angle. The water is leaking from the bottom where the driveway meets the sidewalk. There is a small piece of wood between the two. The control head that controls the zone (zone 2) that is leaking is in the top left side of my yard (the large side) and the main pipe from the water meter to the sprinkler system is on the bottom right side of the yard by the sidwalk. No other zones leak when the sprinkler system is running.

So again, how does one find the piper under the driveway?

Thanks

 

[Doughbroz]

If you know who installed the system, they might have made a rough map. Failing that, if the ground is soft enough you might try probing with a fairly blunt steel rod and try to trace the pipe. Good luck, I once dug so many holes trying to find pipe junctions in a rocky yard peeps were calling me "Gopher"

 

[brntorng]

Not sure I understand your explanation, but a common source of leaks is where sprinkler heads attach to the pipe. Especially at the location you describe, a tire can easily roll over a sprinkler and bust the pipe underneath. If this was a commercially installed system, installers often install sprinklers straight into the pipe to save money, but they're prone to be easily damaged.

If it doesn't appear that a sprinkler is involved, let the water run for a while. If it's a substantial leak it will eventually bubble up close to the leak since the water will seek the easiest path to the surface. Then get your shovel and start digging very carefully around where the water is coming out of the ground.

 

[taco]

another option is to cap/shutdown all the sprinklers in the problem zone and that will help show where the leak is

this happened to me due to a tree root crushing the pipe underneath the sidewalk.

 

[Vince4Heisman]

the valve that sits atop my system broke during a freeze here in houston, how hard is that to replace or should i just call who installed my unit?

 

[wolfman]

I depends, but it is not to hard to replace a valve. You will most likely need to cut and re-cement some PVC. This place has some good sprinkler tutorials:

www.sprinklerwarehouse.com/Irrigation-Tutorials-Help-Sprinkler-Repair-Design-s/5712.htm