Irrigating

Tuesday I got my irrigation going.  To my surprise it went pretty smoothly.  I had no serious leaks along my mainline pipes.   The extra effort I put into replacing old gaskets and assembling the mainline paid off.

I left the end cap off the mainline pipe in order flush out the dirt and debris.  Then I had to walk back a third of a mile or more to turn off the pump.  Then walk back to the end of the mainline to insert the end cap.  Then I did the same for the two sprinkler lines.  One line was plugged inside the last pipe.  A tight wad of roots was jammed.  I had to lift and drop the pipe a number of times to rattle the pipe and free the wad.

Then I discovered the second to last pipe was missing its gasket and was leaking badly.  I got another gasket from an unused pipe and stopped the leak.  To insert the sprinkler lines' end caps I did not have to turn off the pump again.  I removed the last pipe, inserted the end cap, then quickly inserted the pipe.  Usually I can insert and hook the pipe in place before the pipe fills with water.

Once both sprinkler lines' end caps were inserted the sprinklers were going full bore.  I walked the mainline back to the irrigation pump checking for leaks.  The pump's pressure gauge was vibrating between 45 and 50 lbs of pressure.  Then I discovered one sprinkler line was spraying water.  The last pipe had come off.  Apparently I hadn't hooked it correctly.  Once I re-hooked the pipe the pressure went up to 60 lbs and the sprinklers really tossed the water out.

I am running 25 sprinklers to cover "one line" of the hay field.  I could run a few more sprinklers and still have good water pressure, but I can't run enough sprinklers to fill another line.

Here is a 1 minute 45 second video showing the sprinklers in action: https://youtu.be/-mUHtY_Ozds