And The Sprinkler Project Continues At The Bamboo Lagoon

Old one

So after doing alll that work on the PVC so I could turn on the water supply to our front sprinkler system, I find that the controller box we have had for years had finally died.

I was trying to turn on just the pop up zone so I could water the majority of the grass and beds in the front yard, but none of the buttons would really respond to being pushed. There was plenty of power, it just seemed that it was worn out. Upon investigating, it looked like it was not that hard of a job to replace it.

The next day, I went to one of our local irrigation stores and asked their opinion about trying to fix the one we had or replacing it. Replacing it seemed to be the way to go since fixing it would be almost the same cost and there was no guarantee that the repairs would last very long.

New one in the box

So I purchased a new controller on the recommendation of two different stores and proceeded to install it this afternoon. It really was a matter of hooking the power to it and then putting in the wires for the valves into the right slots.

New one installed and set up

Once I had it hooked up and set the time, date and year, I turned on a manual run of the main popup zone and adjusted the sprayers when it came on as it was meant to. Looks like all the popups still work although two need to have some vegetation cut out around them, and I was able to water the majority of our front yard for 30 mins. Good soak!

PVC Plumbing Repair

This project was not on the list at all but as I was turning on the water valves for feeding water to the sprinkler system in the front yard, I discovered a broken gate valve and so in order to use the sprinkler system, it had to be repaired.

Rusted and cracked

It seems that this supply line probably originally was just a spigot on the edge of the porch wall and when the sprinkler system was installed, they modified the set up to get water to the system. Since the gate is turned off in the winter to keep the pipes from freezing, air does get to the inside of the pipe and it is an old pipe so it just eventually rusted out.

Before cutting

I had to get a new gate valve, and then cut out the PVC portion, so I could remove the old gate valve and put in the new one, which then meant rebuilding the PVC portion. This was a better option than trying to cut through the galvanized iron pipes on the other side of the valved and then having to couple them.

First cut

Once I cut through the PVC in two spots with a hack saw to pull out the majority of it, I then unscrewed the old gate valve with a plumbers wrench. I took all the parts, including the new gate valve that I had previously purchased with me to the local hardware store to find out exactly what I would need to buy and configure.

Cut out portion and old gate valve

At the store, Jim helped me to figure out what pieces I needed and explained exactly how to do all the connecting, as I had never done any PVC "glueing" before. He actually threaded the pieces that had threads together for me before I left, and I took a picture of the set up so I would be sure to put it together correctly. He also cut several pieces of the 3/4 inch PVC I would be using in between to varying lengths, so I wouldn't have to cut them myself and I would have a few options for getting the new stuff lined up with the old stuff that still remained as part of the system.

Laid out at store

I also bought the primer and glue for the job since we didn't have any at home, with this being my first time ever doing this kind of plumbing.

New gate valve

Primer

Glue

When I got home, I cleaned up the threads of the pipe sticking out from the porch wall, and then reapplied three rounds of teflon tape before then screwing on and tightening the new gate valve.

New gate valve attached

Once I had it connected, I lined up all the other pieces where they would go in the line and made sure that the various connecting pieces of 3/4 inch pvc would fit where they needed to be. I cleaned up the ends of any rough edges of the cut pieces of PVC with a rasp file. I put on latex gloves as recommended by Jim to keep my fingers from turning purple or blue from the primer and glue. I then applied the primer to all the pieces I would be eventually applying the glue to, which included both sides of each junction.

Pieces with primer applied

Once I had all the pieces primed, I double checked my order of things and then started to apply the glue to each piece and its opposite junction piece and putting them together with one quarter turn. Once I had the entire thing glued back together, I cleaned up my mess. I decided to wait 24 hours before turning on the water to the system because we have a lot of pressure on our system and I wanted to give the entire thing time to set up.

All finished

We'll see how it works...I am sure as soon as the water is turned on, I will then have to deal with the issues the sprinkler system itself has, and that will be a new project to blog about.

Garage Door Remote

Ever since we have been back at the house, we have not had the ability to open the garage door from our vehicle. This is due to the fact that our crappy property management didn't maintain control of whatever remote they gave to renters. The only way to open it was to click on the button mounted on the wall of the garage.

This wasn't too bad, since we don't park in the garage and rarely needed to get into the garage from the outside, but there were times where it would be convenient to close the door from the outside.

I had purchased a universal remote from Chamberlain (our opener's manufacturer) but just never got the programming done, because of the way our opener motor is installed in the bulkhead of our garage ceiling.

Well, my sister in law came over this weekend and this was one of the things on our list to accomplish. I had to cut a bit bigger hole in the bulkhead (without damaging the AC duct), to see if I could get access to the programming buttons that are on the back of the opener motor.

We figured out a way to plug a light in so we could see if the programming was working and after much fiddling, we finally got the opener to open the door using the remote. I was so excited I jumped from the ladder with glee.

I then installed this grate over the hole in the bulkhead to just tidy things up a bit. Hopefully we won't need that access again any time soon.

Three Small Projects

Missing board from front

I have had a few little tasks on the to do lists for a while that have been nagging at me but they really required more than one person to get knocked out. As part of a little deal with my SIL to do tasks one day at her house and one day at our house this weekend, I was able to checkmark these babies off the list.

First one was to add board back to our fence on the left side of the house that has been missing for some time. I had purchased the board ages ago but just hadn't had a chance to knock it out.

Due to the fact that the wood fence has a metal gate, the extra board is kind of suspended to the rest of the fence by two added pieces of 2x4. So we cut a 2x4 that I had in the garage so we could reattach two new pieces for anchorage to the fence. I realize that this isn't pressure treated wood, but these fixes are just to get by for a while. I really hope to replace both sections of fence on both sides of the house with a new fence of a completely different style (but that is way down the road for now).

Missing board area from back

New anchors attached

After we attached the new anchor pieces, we attached the new cedar dogeared board after cutting some length off it.

New board from back

New board from the front

The second fence project was to help help support and straighten up a portion that has been leaning for a while. Once again, this is just a temporary fix to keep the fence from coming down completely until we can get a more permanent fix. The issue is that the 4x4 is wobbling in the anchor, and short of digging up the entire cement anchor, this temp fix is the only solution in the short term.

Leaning fence before fix

Fence with support in place

So we attached a small piece of 2x4 to the fence and then cut a length of 2x4 for the support and hammered in a stake in the ground. I'll probably trim up a lot of the vegetation around the fence too in case it is putting pressure on it.

Last project of the day was to put in two hooks in the garage ceiling to hold our 20ft extension ladder. At some point, we'll probably put a couple more up there to hold our 16ft extension ladder as well.

Ladder installed in the ceiling

Felt good to knock out these small nagging tasks with help from my SIL. Sometimes it is the little ones that really bog you down.

Rock Work At The Bamboo Lagoon

Washed out section

So I was cleaning up this walkway area in the backyard that runs up the side fence to the area behind the pool. We still had a ton of acorns and oak leaves left there and I was determined to get them in the bin for pickup. Anyhow, during the course of the cleanup, I noticed that there was a section of the rock wall bordering one of the beds that looked like it had basically slid down. I was able to dig up three or four big rocks but it wasn't really enough to fill in the gap and I knew we were going to have to get more rock to build it back up properly.

Section dug out for rock replacement

So I cut with a shovel a straight line down from the bed so that I would have a basic area for placing the new rocks in and then the next day, I took a few sample rocks with me to the big landscaping store and searched and loaded rocks for an hour or so. Once the truck was loaded up, we had 750 lbs of new rocks in the bed.

Some of the larger ledger pieces in front, and the topper pieces in back

I got back to the house and it was and hour and 1/2 of unloading and carrying the rocks uphill into our backyard. I took the tailgate off the truck which made it much easier on the body for sure. Once they were all in the backyard, I dug out the area a bit more since the rocks were a bit wider than originally planned for.

Some of the other large pieces waiting for placement.

Base layer in place

I started putting down the somewhat narrower ones first since the slope of the bed was going to allow for the wider ones on top. I back-filled behind the rocks as I got them in place.

Second level in place

Then I started working on getting the second third layers in which some overlap onto the other two ends of the repair so it would blend some.

The finished repaired section with the cap pieces on

I then put the flatter cap/topper pieces into place, and back-filled the wall and the cracks between the rocks. Some of these bigger ledger pieces were 60 lbs a piece so I don't think they will be sliding anywhere anytime soon. As you can see from the image, I have a lot of grass to weed out of the bed still but that is a task for another day...I was done for the day after getting this repair into place and the sun was done too.