Irrigation System: Rough Completion

Back in April, one of the major projects of 2020 was to rework and expand the gutter and downspout drain system on the south side of the house, along the parking area and through the Grove and across the edge of the front yard to the outlet in the front wall. With the trenches I had to dig, it just made sense to also begin laying lines that would be part of my future irrigation system. In fact, this was not only the trigger to simultaneously begin work on the sprinkler system, but this was also the moment when I made the wiser choice of including lines to service the rear of the property (see photo above), rather than just the front yard. I've offered updates along the way and am glad to now be able to summarize what amounts to the final stages of the bulk of the project. But I'd also like to include a few tidbits of the project that I haven't talked about much yet.

Folks in the neighborhood have watched with interest, amusement, empathy, and horror while I've labored for many, many hours on this irrigation system. A married couple that did a marvelous job of fixing up an old house on Second Street has occasionally paused on their neighborhood strolls to ask a variety of questions. I always felt like there was a tinge of concern at my lack of knowledge and expertise, though. For instance, they chided me for "digging to China," with the husband adding: "I've never seen irrigation trenches that deep before." And yes: it's true that I dug many of the trenches much deeper than might have been necessary, but I thought I had a couple of reasonable explanations. A key motivator was getting the lines under the front flagstone landing at the halfway point of the stairs coming up from the street (see top portion of the photo above). It's about 9 feet wide, and the PVC pipes are 10 feet. I had to dig down far enough to pound aluminum conduit underneath (creating a small tunnel, one might say) to then run the PVC lines, and I had to dig out a long enough run to be able to work a 10-foot conduit in battering ram fashion.  It also allowed a more level layout of the main lines and the laterals to the sprinklers, given the sharp slope down as you approach the front wall. Finally, I definitely don't mind having the extra protection from freezing weather...I'm well below the frost line for this part of North Carolina! Speaking of this part of the state, please note the hard-packed clay in the picture below:

I ran three lines underneath, planning either to have three front yard zones (if the City water connection was on the south end) or to have two zones plus a main line from a north end City connection. It's the latter that carried the day.

To get water for the backyard irrigation zones, I laid the main water line under the gutter/downspout drain line which is under a gutter drain for the porch sidewalk from the parking lot. But the concrete sidewalk going to the rear kitchen door was a much more difficult proposition. It took me a day and a half just to get a single line underneath it, because of how hard-packed the clay and gravel were. That led me to put the rear valve box on the back side of that sidewalk, since I could not manage multiple lines under that sidewalk, and decided to have a seventh valve and zone just for the kitchen herb garden:

That meant ordering an additional valve, which was the last one to be set up and wired. But that was completed by July 25th.

With that last valve in place, I felt ready to also finish wiring up my smart controller in the cellar (above and below)...

...and that's my own messy conduit job!

I've mentioned the yard hydrant that I installed on the south property line in order to have a point of connection for drip lines to service the narrow strip of azaleas along the main driveway entrance. But I also installed two other yard hydrants while I was putting this system in. There is now a faucet for the front yard:

...and another for the back yard:

Here at the end of the main installation process, I had to consider a couple of key elements of the front-end design for the system: a filter and a blow-out access point (in order to winterize the system each fall). Crouched in the rear hallway, I put together this simple scheme to fit in the in-ground valve box I had set aside for this very purpose:

It allows me to have an additional manual main system shutoff separate from the backflow preventer valves and the meter in the street. I created a lateral element with hose-thread adaptors so that I could attach either a simple pressure gauge (as shown here) or to attach an air hose adaptor (for an air compressor connection). On that side "maintenance" line, I put in another manual valve to prevent any unnecessary leaking.

On Wednesday, the City installed the new water meter, and on Thursday, the backflow preventer was tested and certified, meaning the water connection was turned on. The last "external" element was paving the streetcut where the new water main connection occurred...that also took place last Thursday as well.

As of the first week of August, the irrigation system is now essentially completed and will involve no other outside parties. Now, it's simply up to me to finish things out, and I hope I feel free to take my time and to wrap up the project smartly and carefully.

By the way, when I was tying together the last of the main and zone lines and connecting them to the City water supply line, it was during a very stormy and rainy week. Unfortunately, each day's storm threat sort of forced me to work quickly...and I failed horribly at taking pictures of most of these last system elements. That's not just a matter of adorning this blog post, but it is now a missing record of where the lines are and how I routed them and how the connections were made, because I was in too much of a hurry to get them covered over before the storms.