Irrigation

Even though the Summer season is over, I am still working on the irrigation and pipes.  Not so much to grow grass this year, but mainly to get the grass out of hibernation (due to the lack of rain) and get the root system built up for next year.  Much like the recommendation to water trees in the Fall, even after the leaves have turned and fallen off, in order to build up their root systems.  The weather prediction is for a dry Fall and dry Winter.

Also, by getting the problems solved now I will be ready to go next Spring/Summer.

Getting the irrigation up and going has taken up much of my time this past month.  For the first few weeks half my day was spent on this task. Now the time spent is less.  Still, the rest of my projects have been slipping due to the time spent on the irrigation pipes.

I had moved the pipes twice a day. I tried moving them every 12 hours. Between my struggle to get up before 9 am and the sun setting before 8 pm, every 12 hours was not always the case.  Now as I am winding down I am moving the pipes only once a day to give the ground a final soak before the end.

The time moving the pipes and getting the irrigation back up and running got shorter.  Initially the time took 2 1/2 to 3 hours each time. That seems to be a thing of the past. The time shrank to 2 hours, then an hour an a half.  The time now usually is a little under an hour. 

I didn't just move the two sprinkler lines, for a while I also added pipe to the mainline as I went down the field.  As the sprinklers can throw the water 40 feet at good pressure, initially I extended the mainline 80 feet at a time.  However due to all the leaky gaskets and pipes I wasn't able to reach the far end of the field before I wasn't able to pressurize the system.

So I started over.  That meant dragging all the sprinkler pipes back to the beginning and starting over rebuilding the mainline.  This time I spaced the sprinkler lines 60 ft apart to ensure the water from each line would overlap the other.  Often the pressure wouldn't throw the water 40 ft; sometimes the wind would blow from one direction one day, then the next day after I moved the pipes the wind would blow from the other direction creating un-watered areas between the moved lines.

This time I was able to reach the far end of the hayfield.  By now I had my new starter pipe and that eliminated two big leaks.  Plus some more new gaskets and a greater attention to pipe connections.


While the sprinkler pipes (3 inch diameter) are 40 feet long, the mainline pipes (4 inch diameter) are 20, 21 and 40 ft long.  Why the different lengths?  The 40 ft pipes are aluminum.  The 20 and 21 ft pipes are steel.  Yes... steel!  And yes, heavy!  While the steel pipes are half the length of the aluminum pipes, the steel pipes weigh much more than the aluminum pipes.

I've talked with a few local people and no one had ever seen steel irrigation pipes.  Last month I spoke with an irrigation store from Boise, Idaho about gaskets for the steel pipe.  He said he rarely sells gaskets for steel pipes.  He said at the end of World War II aluminum began to be used for irrigation pipes as there was no longer a demand for aluminum to make airplanes for the war effort.  My understanding is that the previous ranch owners had been irrigating at least as far back as the late 50s to early 60s, and maybe earlier back to when the ranch was created at the beginning of the 1940s.

Why 20 and 21 ft for the steel pipes?  The 20 ft pipes are just that - pipes.  One end flared out and the other end tapered so one pipe can slip inside another. Not too much inside - just a few inches, unlike with aluminum pipes and some of the steel pipes.   The 21 ft pipes?   The extra foot is because a valve for attaching a sprinkler line had been welded onto the end of the steel pipe.

Flared end of steel pipe

Steel pipe with valve.  Steel pipe with gasket on outside.

Why did it take me so long to move sprinkler lines?  Initially it was because I was trying to figure out how everything went together.  Mainly however, leaks.  Many of the gaskets are dried and hard.  And I have many styles of gaskets.

The aluminum pipes have 3 and 4 inch gaskets that go on the inside.  In fact all the gaskets go inside except for the tapered ends on the steel pipes.  Those (3 and 1/2 inch) gaskets go on the outside of the pipe.  Of course all of those gaskets are dried and rock hard and don't seal well.  The inner gaskets range from soft to hard.  I've replaced a number of the inner gaskets with plans to replace more.

I found another agricultural irrigation seller, Carl.  I've avoided the first one, Myron, after he didn't bother to find a pump for me.  Carl is trying to retire as he is 70 years old, but is unable to as the guy who was to take over the business didn't "work out" and Carl's prior customers begged for help, especially this year when it was so dry and irrigation so necessary.  Carl is no longer in the phone book but someone recommended him to me.  Thank goodness!

Carl has been able to sell me a number gaskets.  Carl found the Boise seller for me.  I had to email the Boise seller photos of my steel pipe and gaskets in order for him to find the correct gaskets for it.  Several weeks later I had to call the Boise seller asking if he sent my gaskets.  "Oh.  How many did you want again?"  *sigh*  The story of my life this year when ordering stuff - it never arrives on time.  Last week I finally got the gaskets for the steel pipes.

Old gasket on outside of steel pipe

Indentation on outside of steel pipe where the gasket goes on.

Carl also made me a new starter pipe.  This is the pipe that transitions from the threaded pipe from the pump and gate valve out to the 4 inch mainline hook and latch pipe.  Dad, and the prior owners, had a two pipe transition unit and it leaked like a sieve.  On that contraption the threaded two inch pipe went to a 5 inch short piece of pipe.  Then another short piece of pipe slid into the 5 inch pipe and then tapered down to about 4 inches where a 4 inch mainline pipe would slide over the end.

The two 5 inch parts had a few oddball rubber pieces inside them to prevent (fail!) leaks.  The two pieces were held together by a small latch and also a collar that went around the two pipes' lips.  The small latch got in the way of the collar from completely closing. Anyway, it was a Rube Goldberg contraption and leaked terribly.   The irrigation seller welded and made me a short piece of pipe that threaded into the 2 inch pipe and then flaired out to hold a 4 inch mainline pipe.  The piece has a robust hook opening to hold the pipes together and a standard spot for the gasket.  It doesn't leak.

Old two piece starter pipe contraption

New starter pipe

Later I found out why I was putting stuff together backwards in the beginning.  The two piece starter contraption ended with a male end not a female end.  The pipe system is suppose to go female to male.  Most of dad's pipe did go female to male.  Then how if it starts out male to female.  It wasn't until last weekend went I reconfigured the pipe system yet again and needed to use a 90 degree elbow.  While does have a male and a female end, the male end was hidden in another pipe.

The elbow was fastened to a 9 ft section of steel pipe.  Why 9 ft?  The mainline ran along a pasture fence from the river to the hayfield.  Apparently the previous owners who set the system up wanted the mainline connection to end right at the hayfield fence.  And quite possibly this is the correct length to bisect the hayfildl.  I am guessing as for now I laid the pipes out in a different configuration.

So it appears they cut a 20 ft pipe to have a 9 ft pipe.  But the 9 ft pipe had a female end and a neutered end.   The came up with the ring/sleeve contraption to join the neutered end to the elbow.  This is how the pipe goes from male/female to female/male.

I found that the 3 inch sprinkler pipes were of two varieties.  They will hook to one another but one style is harder to hook to the other style.

I was also slowed down in the beginning when I couldn't find the end plug for the mainline.  I tried to use the end plug from Donna's mother's irrigation pipe but that needed to be wired to stay in place and it leaked. After a number of days I found dad's end plug.  Instead of the butt end out like the sprinkler lines, this end plug's butt end goes in the pipe.  When I had looked for the end plug in the stack of pipes all I saw were openings.  It wasn't until I used one of the mainline pipes that I found the end plug inside the pipe.  The correct end plug eliminated a leak.

End plug

How do the pipes stay together?  Mainly with a hook system.  All the aluminum pipes has a catch on one end and a hook on the other end.  In the photo below a steel pipe goes into an aluminum pipe.  To make that work dad replaced the latch seen in a later photo with a collar and hook as seen in the photo below.

It seems as if each pipe fits into the other differently.  I learned to keep the same order in the line of the sprinkler pipes once I adjusted the collar location on a pipe connection.  Otherwise I was constantly changing the collar position whenever I moved pipes.


Here is how two steel pipes are latched together.

Since the gaskets are hard and don't expand under pressure I had to use other methods to hook the pipes tightly together.  Here I used a small rock to keep the latch from sliding down to the other pipe's lip so as to stop a leak.

Some pipes were missing their latch.  Now you'd think steel pipes - being so heavy - wouldn't slide apart.  But under the tremendous water pressure they do.  I had to add wire to hold the pipes together.

In addition to gaskets I had the valve caps to replace. The valve caps are a sturdy rubber covering a steel disk.  Of course they are all dry.   I found that sometimes after opening a valve cap after all these years the rubber often wouldn't reseal once I moved on down the line.  Then it was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul as I borrowed valve caps that would seal from unused steel pipes.  Last Friday I finally got new valve caps.  All but five.  Carl mis-ordered the number I needed.  The valve caps are expensive.  $10 each.  I got 20.  I need 25.

Here is how the valve looks like when it is opened.

How do I get the 3 inch sprinkler pipes connected to a 4 inch mainline pipe?   By this t-piece that opens the valve caps.  A "valve opener".

The opening where the 3 inch pipe connects to the valve opener has the same style of gasket as the 3 inch pipes.   The bottom of the valve opener that connects to the mainline has its own style of gasket.  Carl is still trying to find a supplier with this type of gasket.  For now the valve openers leak, mainly at the bottom and then at the handle.  I think the handle leak is a result of he bad valve caps.  I'll see once I get my new valve caps.  Carl thinks a gasket is around the handle.  If so, mine don't have any.

After sitting for a few years the pipes were dirty.  Initially as I added more pipes I would have to take time to run water to wash the dirt and debris out of the pipes.  That meant walking back and forth to turn the pump on and off and on.

Flushing the dirt from some pipes.

In addition to leaks, time wasters were when I forgot to double check that the end caps were hooked in place after moving pipes.  Other times the collar on a valve opener got unlatched as I worked on pipes.  If unlatched the valve opener really leaked.  Unfortunately the collars seem to latch hard and un-latch easily.

There were times I would walk back and forth four times to turn the pump off and back on.  At 2 tenths of a mile one way, four round trips add up to 1.6 miles of walking.  That takes time.

Now that the hayfield has been watered, this past weekend I switched to watering the pasture.  It took over a day to move the pipes and set up new sprinkler lines.  I hand carried over half the pipes.  This afternoon I decided to use the pickup to haul the rest of the steel mainline pipes that i will use later this week.

This is 18 pipes.  After i unloaded the pipes I had to straighten my tailgate as it got bent.  Maybe the pickup is not the best way to move the steel pipes.  I'll use the tractor next time.

This morning when I turned the pump on the corner leaked badly.  I had to shut everything down and re-do the corner.

Fixed corner

Anyway, the worst seems to be over.  Pipe movement is going smoother and quicker.  The watering seems to be working.  The grass is greening up in the hayfield and in many places even growing.  The grass is also thicker and denser.  Now to see if I can help the north and middle pastures before a killing frost completely ends the growing season.