Repairing a Leak in Zone 7

 As part of replacing the fence, we tested the sprinkler system to make sure it all worked.  Two problems showed up.

One was a problem with Zone 6.  The lowest head, down by the fence, seemed to just dribble water constantly, whether zone 6 was on or not.  This suggested that the valve was failing to close completely.  So we found the valve for zone 6, buried in the lawn close to the rock retaining wall, dug it up, and cleaned it off.  Now it seems to be working, so we just left it alone, for now.

The other problem was a leak in Zone 7.  One of the heads was just gushing water out of the ground around it.  When we dug it up, we found that a root had grown right across the sprinkler line at the head and pushed the head to the side while breaking the irrigation line at both ends of the pipe that the head was screwed into.

We sawed off the root. and removed the broken pieces of pipe.

Without the root in the way, we can use the same design as before.  But since we need to cut back a little on both ends, we will need a short extension piece added to make up the distance.

Then we can attach the part that the head screws into.

and attach that to the original pipe.

Putting the sprinkler head back in place, we finish it off.

When we tested it, water still gushed all over.  Closer examination showed that the sprinkler head itself had been pushed to the side so that it cracked the body of the head.  We replaced the sprinkler head with a spare and everything worked.