It never fails that the spring charge-up of the irrigation system brings with it a few repairs. In most cases, we are dealing with small diameter pipe, lateral feeds, and broken heads. This year, however, we faced something a bit more daunting. We found the couplers on the 10" mainline leaving the Gray Hawk pump station had failed and were leaking extensively. These had to be repaired to prevent a catastrophic mid-season failure.
Careful excavation was critical to avoid any contact with power and signal wires
as well as any collateral damage to the stable pipe.
We found that the gasket within the band coupler (not the best choice for this particular joint) had failed and water was escaping from this point.
We removed the old couplers and schedule 40 pipe and spent the next couple days trying to find new pipe somewhere close by. All we found in the area was schedule 40 140lb test pipe and I wasn't comfortable using this. We finally found the C900 pipe which should be well suited for this application.
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To avoid the same problem down the road, we upgraded to a mechanical joint/mega lug coupler. These are pretty heavy fittings and a bit cumbersome to work with. Fortunately, our pipes lined up and the couplers slid on relatively easily.
All that is left to do is splice our power wires, backfill the hole, and charge the system. Nate Phillips, Jeff Moeller, Tyler Welp, Kurtis Burden and Rich Lee all played a role in fixing this pipe. Their work is greatly appreciated.
Nice..
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