Helpless Female Takes On Underground Broken Sprinkler Pipe

I think it is because I have been studying Chinese.  I think my husband decided that if I can do that, I can be taught anything.  I am dubious about this, but circumstances were in his favor this time around.  But I must emphasize that I was tutored well by him before I went to buy supplies, then helped immensely by the sprinkler guru at D&B.

The deal was that a main line was chopped asunder while a lawn edging was in progress.  No, it wasn’t me.  This was temporarily fixed by the responsible party, only to be broken again by a well-intentioned lawn mower.  Again, not me.  This time, the break necessitated disassembling the line, which lead to the discovery of an OLD repair job that was now also knocked loose.

The dear husband did try a quick, easy fix option, which was neither quick or easy, and didn’t work, but was very innovative.  Besides, he got to use the propane torch.  If he had had the parts, he really could have done it in a quarter of the time I did, but he didn’t.  So, after he turned off the torch, I came close enough again to get a thorough explanation of parts and procedures.  The next day he went to work and I went to D&B Supply.

To give myself some credit, by this time I understood the desired result well enough to ask some intelligent sounding questions.  I knew what the man meant when he spoke of certain joints and clamps.  I knew about pressure regulators!  I came home with a few extra parts, but the better to fill my new orange sprinkler tool and supply box with…

After measuring how much pipe I would need to bridge the gap, I crawled up the ladder into the barn loft with a hacksaw and measuring tape in one hand.   The roll of pipe is on some suitcases and life jackets, all of which are still in one piece.  The roll of pipe is 28 inches shorter.

Once back at the work site, I dug out the trench so that the pipes could fit under the edging bricks.

Then I began assembly.  Tightening the clamps was both harder and easier than I had imagined.  There were no special tricks other than knocking off a lot of hard crusty dirt and finally figuring out how to use a short, fat screw driver for proper leverage.  I am quite proud of my t-connection –  I used a scrap piece of pipe from the old set-up for the appendage that goes under the brick.

Voila!

And my elbow connection –

I decided I should probably attempt to fill in the holes, which meant trying to put the edging pavers in place, something I have bad memories of.  In spite of the fact that some of the dirt seems to have evaporated, it turned out decently; and I surprised my espoused engineer, who didn’t even consider that I might try that. That’s the nice thing about being a helpless female.  When I actually do manage some of these type of things, I get lots of attention.