My phone started acting up yesterday. Went out to try to fix it. Yep it was the line I pulled the sprinkler sytem through a few weeks ago. So put some grease caps on the two wires that were in use. The phone line didn’t really get any better. So I had to call sbc. They came out today and just put a temp line around my house, kind of like what they did when they came out to hook the phone up. So in 2 to 4 weeks they will be out to pull a new phone line for me. I have to mark all of my sprinkler lines so they do not go through them. I know for some reason they will be pulling a phone line right though them. We shall see. Hopefully the will not. If I remember correctly I only have 2 lines that will be in their way. Those have not even been put down yet either. They are the last two I have to do. So hopefully they will not cause any problems. I still have not fixed my drain that they pulled the cable through last year. Oh well. We shall see what happens. Hopefully they will not charge me for this.

Well, I was able to put a few more heads in last night. I have not been working on the sprinkler system as much as I would like to have been. Was out of town this past weekend. I am down to 2 more heads on the side yard and one more zone on that side and then fill in the holes for the 2 zones and then one more zone on the other side yard and the main line T that goes to the house to connect to the main water source. That will be about a 10 foot dig to hook that up. Oh well. So hopeing one more evening or work maybe two. Planning on taking back some of the extra pieces I have at lunch today and need to pick on one piece. After it is all in the ground I think I only have one valve to dig up to fix a leak. Hoping there is only one valve that is having problems.

Well hopefully, tonight I will be able to finish up the last zone on the side of the house and then I will have to hook the main line ,that I cut out of the side, up on the other side so it runs right up to the house. After that is complete I will have all zones up and running. After that I will need to go aroud and fix any leaks I find. I know of 3 right now. Will have to dig up the valves that are leaking and unhook them and then tighten them up and then hook them back up. Big pain but will get to it eventually. Not in a hurry to get that since I hook the hose to it when I use it and then unhook it so there is not constant pressure on the line all the time. If all goes well I will be able to run all the zones tonight. Not that I will need to since it has rained almost every night this week.

Well I decided to take the day off from working on the sprinkler system and decided to mow the yard. It needed it. So the yard is not torn up to bad. A few spots that will need some more top soil and seed but most of the areas I was able to patch up nicely and seems to be doing OK. I did notice that after turning the sprinkler system on last night after I mowed, there was water in 3 of the valve boxes, there was not water in those when I started the system. This means I have a leak on those valves. Not a big deal right now but when I plumb the system into the house there will be pressure on those lines all the time. So I really need to dig those back up and get the leak fixed. Will try to just tighten the clamps down by hand first and see what happens. Probably will have to dig it up and fix those. Oh well. Then I have a bit of digging to do to finish up the last 3 zones. Hope I have some time tonight. Suppose to rain though. We shall see.

Well over the weekend I was able to accomplish almost everything I wanted to. Got the controller wired up and working. Rain the wire into the garage and put into conduit. That is all working and have all the zones wired up. Controller is setup and programed. I have the whole backyard up and running now. Was able to get another 34 zones in total over the weekend. Backyard has a total of 4 zones the side yard has one zone and the front has 2 more zones. I have one zone left to hook up in the front. I have to get about 15 more feet of the main line to finish that off. Then I have to plumb in the overflow valve, have it hooked up to the hose right now. Works great that way though. Then the only other thing to finish up this week is the 2 zones next to the garage. Hope to get out and work at those today. Need to mow the yard also. So we shall see what gets completed in between the rain this week. Only thing I am worried about is two of the valves are underwater as of yesterday. Had a bit of rain in the afternoon and when I was tweaking the zones I opened the covers and noticed that two of the covers had water in the containers. One was almost full. I hope I do not have a leak on the main line. Both were close to where water goes from the roof. I hope they both just were full because of the run off. Hopefully I can test that this week to see where the water is coming from.

Not to much going on in my life right now. Been putting as much time into setting up the sprinkler system as I can in the evenings. It is funny, taylor likes to either lay in the piles of dirt I have dug up or dig in them or eat them. She is such a good helper 🙂

So last night I was able to hook the hose to the end of the main line and fill it up with water and got a lot of the dirt out of the line. Man was there a lot. So far I have run into two problems. Not really major problems.
First one is the main wire that goes along the main line that controls the valves. I am going to have to gut the whole thing and then splice another into for the main connection to the garage where the controller will be. I think I will do that tonight. Not a big deal, but hope it all comes out OK. Will cut it at one of the valves and then just hook it all up so when I put the last 5 valves on soon they will work when I plug them in. Was able to get 3 zones up and running last night. Just opened them up manually and let the zone run for a few minutes. Plenty of tweaking but not to bad for my first time. Just have to adjust the angle of a few heads and maybe put smaller nozzles on a few also. Have 3 zones all finished and another zone pretty much ready to go and then another 2 zones in front that I just have to put the valve in for and hopefully another should be up and running tomorrow sometime. Want to have everything up and running for 7 zones by end of day tomorrow. The last 2 zones that are the small strip next to the driveway I have to think about and then mess with. As it stands I have 12 small heads in that area. I want to see if I can get away with not using those heads. But might end up using them anyway. We shall see. Should have no problem getting the whole thing finished Sunday sometime. The last thing I will have to do it my second problem. I have no more mainline left. I need about 15 or so feet to T into the main line to get this line to the house. Plan to hook to hose temporarily but will put the backflow on eventually. Called the local sprinkler place yesterday and they said I can get 15 feet from them no problem. For 20 bucks though. I think I will go back to menards and get 100 feet for 18 bucks instead. Then I will have extra if I ever have to fix a problem or anything. Can’t wait to see the whole thing in action. Trying to figure out how I will be fixing a few big dirt problems also. Probably will put topsoil in some areas and then reseed. Should be pretty easy to grow new grass with a watering system now.

Well just got back from the long holiday weekend. Had a wedding in chi-town. Had a good time. Was good to get back and relax a bit last night though. Have to get back to the grind this week. Need to get out to the local home store so I can pick up a can of spray paint to mark the yard and get the tubing for the yard. Want to mark the spot I want to put the timmer for the system also. Need to be a bit careful because I plan to put a door in the back of my garage and I also want to put the light switches for some new lights in back and also this sprinkler controller. MIght mount that controller during the week so I can get that hooked up sat or sunday and get that working. Hope to have it all running sunday, just hooking the system up to our spicket for this summer I think. Probably not allowed but plan to unhook it or maybe get the backflow valve in place and hook it to that so all I have to do is unhook the hose and perminatly hook a pipe to the backflow valve. At any rate I want to be able to hit a button and then 30 mins later the water is all watered.

Well my brakes have been having problems again so last night I did the normal oil change and then cleaned the air filter and then decided to go ahead and change the rotors on the front again. Well that did it. Brakes on the jeep seem to be working great again. Now to see if I can get the old rotors replaced under warranty. We shall see.