Saturday it was dry and cool enough to fix the sprinkler head and pipes in the front yard that I started a week ago.
I puzzed all week about how to splice this all together, since it turns out the damage to two pipes wasn’t nature, but my ham-handed use of the sawzall to remove roots that were in the way.
Awesome.
I couldn’t find any 3/4″ splice fittings for love or money. At least not ones that weren’t of the compression type. The bad thing about these are they require some space, and they are pretty wide. Won’t work with two pipes sided by side. So I figured if I measured right, and tried things out before gluing, I could straight splice one, and maybe use elbows on the the other. This would fix the cuts, and raise the sprinkler head, which was the goal to begin with.
It got off to a bad start. I needed to cut more root out to access the second pipe, so I got my sawzall and cord and got set up. Right after I plugged in the cord, the dogs went nuts because a dude was creepy-walking by the house. Weird serial killer gait. So as I turned away from the wall, my feet caught on the cord and I went ass-over-teacup, as my mom would say. I hit around my hip and rolled a bit, twinging my back in the process. Getting up or down, or bending is a challenge.
No squats for me this week, for sure.
So I got to cutting and digging.
Then I got to playing with PVC. I fooled around for an hour trying to get the right combination to fit on the straight splice. No matter how I did it, I didn’t have enough in the joint to do it right. And once the glue is on it, you are committed. So I elbowed the both of them.
Did a quick leak test:
Then filled the dirt back in.
Fill in the dirt AFTER you test it. Common sense, but I say it anyhow.
I added compost to the dirt, so that spot should heal itself in no time.
That twingy back has been bothering me since. It’s not a constant ache. It’s a blast of pain if I move the wrong way.
We’ll see how that goes this week. Luckily I’m still ambulatory.
On to the next project.
Inspected By Pat 