I do not do irrigation, but we work around the systems cutting trenches for beds, putting in stone/block for bed edging. I was curious as to how deep we can safely dig, before encountering any irrigation lines. And is there any way to tell where the pipe is located, other than cutting it. I am in Zone 7 , if it makes a difference.
oqueoque
They are usually about a trenching shovel blade down, but they might be higher/lower depending on the site, or if there are roots.
. How deep is that in inches Charlie? And is there a minimum set by code. When I have built decks, and before we poured the footings the building inspector would come out to check that the hole for the footing was deep enough. Do they do that with irrigation?
There is no answer, even with years of layout experience, you cannot "think like an idiot" (tho we tried) to find the layout. Mains are one thing, because wire usually runs with it and a locator can be used. A lateral is another thing; sort of put yourself in the "how would I have run the zone 7 lateral" state of mind. If it's sch 40 pipe and you dig with care, you'll be o.k. If it's class 200 or (worse) 135, you'll hit it like a eggshell, and then the fun begins!
Well what if you do find a line? The correct thing is to route it around you project. Nothing worse than trying to excavate under flatwork to repair a leak
If it's not being rerouted it's an easy fix.
If it's not being rerouted it's an easy fix.
Mainlines and valve wiring are normally buried together on systems where valves are buried in the field. They can be traced accurately with a wire tracer.
Systems manifolded outside the field can be dowsed. Dowsing is relatively easy but takes practice to be accurate.
If you have a wire tracer you can run wire or a fish tape in the lateral and trace it.
When all else fails you can be like a high percentage of the populace and just blow and go, somebody else will fix it.........
Systems manifolded outside the field can be dowsed. Dowsing is relatively easy but takes practice to be accurate.
If you have a wire tracer you can run wire or a fish tape in the lateral and trace it.
When all else fails you can be like a high percentage of the populace and just blow and go, somebody else will fix it.........
+1 on the dowsing. You can make yourself a set of dowsing rods with a wire coat hanger, welding rods or heavy gauge solid copper wire. I actually have a pro-made set. Works best with a set of 2. It won't tell you exactly what's there but it will tell you something is there to avoid. It does help to have an idea of where whatever you're looking for is/may be.
Thanks everyone. The customer wanted the border stones put in, and possible set in concrete and mortared vs set in the soil. The first option ( in concrete ) would make the stones more secure, & the mortared stones look better, but would require digging deeper than the second. I never see any heaving from the cold, where I am located.
I'll give him pricing on both, but will recommend without the concrete, which will lower his cost, & reduce the chance of hitting anything, while digging. And will put in the proposals, that I will not be responsible for any damage to the irrigation, which we have already agreed to verbally, when I went to measure last week.
I'll give him pricing on both, but will recommend without the concrete, which will lower his cost, & reduce the chance of hitting anything, while digging. And will put in the proposals, that I will not be responsible for any damage to the irrigation, which we have already agreed to verbally, when I went to measure last week.
on commercial properties we can sometimes "see" an indention where they ran the main, laterals are little trickier. If your lucky and the soil is a somewhat soft, use your shooter to get a feel of the pvc direction
We demo'd a tool at the end of last year that allows the user to find pipes in the ground similar to how a stud finder works. It actually worked pretty well even in our rocky soils. They are pretty spendy but there is a good chance we will purchase one this spring.
I have successfully used this method for decades for locating burried lines and other objects. I have a friend who is a professional utility locator and he often uses this method instead of all of his fancy electronic locating devices.
Give it a try. Practice on finding known lines first. Remove metal objects such as watches, belt buckles etc from your person before attempting.
Shovel deep. I wish. I've seen systems covered by sod. Common hack down here is using a cable tool and 2" pop-ups on screwed into a tee. Because you know it's hard digging in Sandy soils.
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Given how some of the soil in Florida is so shallow and non-supportive, I totally get the 2-inch popup sprays threaded into a tee.
kellanv would you tell us a bit about your demo of the ssl locator.
what it would do, what it wouldnt do.
how does it treat roots and such?
what it would do, what it wouldnt do.
how does it treat roots and such?
Sure, Rhett. Welcome back!
So the most simple explanation is that it is a stud finder for the ground. It more or less looks like a fat squeegie. Essentially there are sensors on each end of the blade part of the squeegie that use radio waves to measure density. By weaving the blade back and forth, the device can pick up the difference between different densities such as pipes etc. When both sensors pick up the same density, you know that the blade is running parallel to the object.
In practice it worked better than I expected. We have tons of rock here so I was expecting issues with that. It can sometimes pick up on the side of the trench so just like all locating, you have to get the "art" side of things down as well as the technical. I went out into a couple of areas with known piping but not known paths to see if we could retrace the lines. After a little technique practice I could trace backwards from rotors to the POC, even through a pretty heavily tree'd area that I thought would give more false positives than occurred.
There are some other perks such as being able to get a rough feel for pipe sizes etc. The larger pipes are the easier to find with the half inch becoming more difficult.
Overall, I think it is a pretty cool instrument for those of us who need to locate PVC or other non-conductive pipes for various reasons. My team looked at the projects over the last year to determine which ones would have really benefited from having it. We had a few major reworks (moving mainlines and laterals on unknown systems) that we think this would have saved possibly a day or two. Now, obviously there should be compensation for spending less time so we would have to figure out how to make that work.
Hmmm, perhaps a point in favor of using all 1-inch poly on pulled systems, being that the curves in the poly installs will complicate tracking.
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