Sprinklers...Day 13 update

I know everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting and wondering how much I accomplished today. Well, I am proud to announce that I was able to complete both of the tasks I set out to today. I did run in to some problems digging the extra trench. Even though it has rained for the last few days, the ground is still solid and rocky about 3-4 inches down. It probably took me close to an hour to dig a 5ft section of trench.
When I originally planed on the front yards, we were going to put the secondary manifold in the area between the garage and the porch. However, with all the concrete in the driveway, I didn't want to try and figure out how to get the pipe run under 30ft of concrete. So we put the box all the way on the other side of the house, which turned out that we didn't have all the trenches connected to run all the pipe. Luckily it was only a few feet that needed to be trenched by hand.

Here is the final trench.


The second item on the list was running pipe underneight the sidewalk. This was pretty simple. I purchased 3 - 2ft lengths of 3/4in PVC pipe and connected them together with couplings with a hose attachment at the end. I didn't glue any of the pieces together so I could add to the length as needed during the process. All that I had to do is turn on the faucet and slowly work the PVC under the sidewalk. It was pretty quick and other then all the mud, it was pretty painless.
Here is the final product.



With in minutes of finishing, the real rainstorm began. Luckily I didn't have to try and work in the downpour.

The neighbor to the south of me, however, was getting concrete poured today. Even though the neighbor told us that we couldn't drive over his property any longer, the other neighbor still had the trucks running through. :)

Sprinklers..Day 12 &13

It's still raining and muddy, so I didnt even attempt to do any yard work yesterday after I got off of work. It even rained enough to make the nieghbors fancy rockwork in the front of their yard go for a little strol.


The bolder is at least 4 foot around and who knows how much that thing wieghs. The nieghbor seems to have problem after problem with his new house. I have come to the conclusion that his house must be possessed by the worker that fell of the roof and died when it was being built.
Anyway, I do still plan on going out to work in the yard today. I have all 3 kids home with me, so I should be able to arrange for one of them to watch the baby while I dig in the mud for a little while. I really dont plan on getting a lot accomplished today, however I do need to dig one 8 foot trench and figure out how to run a few pipes under the front walk.
That is all for now, I will update with my progress...if there is any.

Sprinklers...Day 11

Nothing to report. I didn't even make it outside to even think about getting anything accomplished. Maybe tomorrow?

Sprinklers...Day.. um..10

Rain, Rain go away, come again another day. That is what I have been thinking all day long. If I thought the muddy mess from yesterday was a treat, well good old Mother Nature showed me what fun really is. The neighbor was also kind enough to move the downspouts from his rain gutters over the property marker line and drain everything into my trenches, so his didn't get as wet. Got to love the caring nature of your neighbors. As you can guess, I didn't accomplish anything beside seeing that my new mud boots fit. I also realized that my arm really hurts, I must have pulled something while I was moving dirt around yesterday. That is all for now, I think I am calling it a night. One of these days the sun will shine and I can have a real update.

Sprinklers...Day 8

Holy crap I am tired. I have been working on sprinklers all day long with only a little to show for it. I finally got the second sprinkler manifold all connected and attached to the mainline. However, when I went to check to make sure everything was tight and I didn't have any leaks, my fairly successful day went down the tubes. One of the automatic valves did not turn off. Almost instantly, this turned the hole, where the manifold was located, into a major mud-infested swimming-pit. The majority of all the surrounding dirt walls crumbled into the water making the hole even bigger and muddier then I could have ever wanted. By time I turned off the water, which is all the way on the other side of the property, I had successfully filled all the trenches in the area with about 4 inches of water. This didn't include the foot of water in the hole where the manifold was.
In trying to unbury the valves, more dirt fell into the hole, making the water the consistency of cold oatmeal. And if any of you have tried digging in oatmeal, you know it isn't very easy. Because mudslide buried the valves, I was unable to hook up any of the sprinkler zones directly to the manifold.
After a good hour or so, I was able to get the manifold out of the mud and propped it up above the ground so the mud could have a chance to dry.
Since I couldn't attach any additional zones to the manifold, I decided to try and run the pipe backwards. So instead of running from the manifold out, I ran the pipe from the final destination back to the manifold. This doesn't sound so difficult, but right before I got to this point, my help had to go take care of the screaming baby. We had the baby out with us while we were working on the pipes, but she soon got bored and needed more attention. This changed the relatively simple task of rolling out the pipe into a major job. Usually you have one person roll the pipe, while the other person makes sure the pipe is going into the hole. All the time trying no to knock the dirt that is on the side of the trenches back into the trench. However, trying to hold the awkward role of 400ft of black poly pipe that has to weigh close to 50lbs makes for a big challenge.
Anyway, after all the fun I had today, I only completed 2 of the 5 zones. I guess this is a little bit of progress, but I still have 3 zones to go. Once that is completed, I still need to run the sprinkler control wire and finish burying the pipe in the ground. I was hoping to be done with all the zones today, that obviously didn't happen. So I will be slowly working at it again every night when I get home from work. FUN FUN FUN...

Sprinklers...Day 7

Today(Friday) wasn't as productive as I would have liked. I did get the big hole dug where I have to put the sprinkler box and manifold. That was a fun task. It rained on and off during the day, so each time it did, I happened to find an excuse to go inside. Another item that was limiting my productivity was my back and arms were sore. This made it an extra chore to do any digging in the ground. I had the parents come over to tend the baby while I was messing with the sprinklers but decided to let them head home, since I wasn't planing on doing much more after the first few hours. On Saturday, I plan on getting the majority of the sprinklers done if not all of it. The neighbor to the North of me is doing a bunch of leveling of their yard, so I need to get the side closest to him done before he takes the dirt that goes in my trenches and moves it someplace else. So all of you can look forward to the progress made tomorrow.

Sprinklers...Day 7

Today was a decent day for a little yard work. It wasn't as hot as it has been and it also didn't rain like it has for the few nights. Before I let you know what happened with the sprinklers today, it is time for a concrete update. Last time I posted I was saying how late the concrete guys were staying. Well the reason they were so late is because they miscalculated how much concrete they needed for the job so they had to get a second truck out to make up the difference. All-in-all they used 20 yards of concrete and finished it in one day. I haven't been around the construction business for a long time, however I was still impressed that they were able to finish it all in one day. If any of you need concrete work done, let me know and I will get you this guys number.
Here are some of the pictures of the final results.





Now onto the sprinklers. Today I spent most of the day installing sprinkler heads in the back yard. It wasn't to hard of a task, but it sure was time consuming. I installed 30 sprinkler heads and was able to complete 5 of the 10 zones completed.
Here is a before and after of the sprinkler heads.




Here is the yard almost looking "normal" again


I still need to setup the second bank of auto valves for the front yard area. Hopefully I will have the time to complete a good portion of the front yard as well. Once that is completed, I will be able to finish filling in the trenches and starting the next project of getting the ground ready to lay sod.

Speaking of getting the ground, I received the new tiller blades in the mail today, so I will be able to till the entire yard as soon as everything is buried. I have a big day tomorrow, so I will leave you with a final thought. If tree's and butter are natural and good, why can both of them kill you in the end?