I was doing some work on my irrigation valves, and the 1 inch diameter riser pipe that leads to one of my zones cracked when I was cutting through it.
A small piece of PVC, irregular in it's shape but maximum 1 inch wide by 3/8 inch tall, fell down the riser pipe.
Shining a light down the pipe I cannot see it so it looks to have been carried down and towards the sprinklers. I have no idea how far it has travelled. I tried a couple of things to recover it. Firstly a shop vac, and secondly I attached a tube to a suction pump. I only recovered water using both methods.
These valves are the anti siphon type not the inline type, so getting to the piece by cutting the pipe is something I would rather avoid as I have to dig down a couple of feet and there are other valves right where I would need to dig.
I can think of a few options. Which one should I spend time on?
1) Try the shop vac again, this time focusing on leaving it on longer and using strong tape to make the seal against the pipe even better. However, I had a pretty good seal on it with another piece of pvc and an adapter. It was good enough to draw a small amount of water into the shop vac.
2) Using adapters and strong tape, attach a piece of 3/4 inch pvc pipe to the shop vac. 3/4 inch pvc pipe fits virtually perfectly inside 1 inch pvc pipe so I could get this narrower 3/4 pvc pipe all the way to the bottom of the 1 inch pipe presumably giving greater suction.
3) I have a basic air compressor so was thinking of taking one of the sprinkler nozzles off and sending air through the system. But I'm wondering whether I have enough power for this. It's the Harbor Freight 3 gallon 1/3 HP compressor. The good news is that this sprinkler zone only has 4 sprinklers in total on it and I could cap off the other 3. The bad news is that there is a lot of piping to push this air through so I'm not sure if the compressor has enough power to get all the way back to the valve riser.
4) In line with the air compressor idea, could I rig up a garden hose to send water down the sprinkler connection nearest to the riser valve? Since the riser valve is cut open, most of water pressure should find it's way there and the broken piece of pvc pipe should be pushed out of the riser pipe.
A small piece of PVC, irregular in it's shape but maximum 1 inch wide by 3/8 inch tall, fell down the riser pipe.
Shining a light down the pipe I cannot see it so it looks to have been carried down and towards the sprinklers. I have no idea how far it has travelled. I tried a couple of things to recover it. Firstly a shop vac, and secondly I attached a tube to a suction pump. I only recovered water using both methods.
These valves are the anti siphon type not the inline type, so getting to the piece by cutting the pipe is something I would rather avoid as I have to dig down a couple of feet and there are other valves right where I would need to dig.
I can think of a few options. Which one should I spend time on?
1) Try the shop vac again, this time focusing on leaving it on longer and using strong tape to make the seal against the pipe even better. However, I had a pretty good seal on it with another piece of pvc and an adapter. It was good enough to draw a small amount of water into the shop vac.
2) Using adapters and strong tape, attach a piece of 3/4 inch pvc pipe to the shop vac. 3/4 inch pvc pipe fits virtually perfectly inside 1 inch pvc pipe so I could get this narrower 3/4 pvc pipe all the way to the bottom of the 1 inch pipe presumably giving greater suction.
3) I have a basic air compressor so was thinking of taking one of the sprinkler nozzles off and sending air through the system. But I'm wondering whether I have enough power for this. It's the Harbor Freight 3 gallon 1/3 HP compressor. The good news is that this sprinkler zone only has 4 sprinklers in total on it and I could cap off the other 3. The bad news is that there is a lot of piping to push this air through so I'm not sure if the compressor has enough power to get all the way back to the valve riser.
4) In line with the air compressor idea, could I rig up a garden hose to send water down the sprinkler connection nearest to the riser valve? Since the riser valve is cut open, most of water pressure should find it's way there and the broken piece of pvc pipe should be pushed out of the riser pipe.
