First and foremost, welcome to the forum! Hope your system is already blown out because Denver gets pretty chilly early on!

As far as you air compressor goes, as you said, volume is what is important. At best these generate 7 or 8 cfm. When you rent a compressor for blowout or have a competent contractor do it, they are at least 75 cfm.

Whats the difference in a practical sense? The homedepot expect to take a day off of work or spending a whole weekend blowing the system out versus spending 15 minutes and being done with the right compressor. You're also much more likely to not get enough water out with the smaller compressor.

I'm not a contractor. But I do have my own system at home too and I never bothered wit using a home use compressor. If you want to attempt it, do it cheaper and rent one and see for yourself.

 

rent one and see for yourself.

Go ahead, more work for the pros when you blow the system out of the ground. :clapping:

 

From a contractor , simply ........... no .

 

Rent a tow behind for 1/2 a day. Before I got into this and bought my own tow behind compressor, I rented a tow behind, and did my system, and then I did 2 neighbors to cover the rental cost.

 

I'd just installed my first big (12 whole zones!) system and knew it should be winterized. No clue on how to do it. Rented a 125, had a piece of junk remote, don't remember where I tied-in (no clue about quick-couples, then), fired it up, no problem, I thought. I had one zone that had 12" Stream-Rotors. Was standing next to the zone, hit the remote and launched a SR to the moon, missing my jaw by inches! "Wow, this is not as easy as I thought." Going back to the compressor, I could smell plastic, looked in a v.b. and that was where the smell was coming from. Turned out, the heat of the compressor had melted the m.i.p fittings to the valves! Lesson learned, everything got repaired on my nickel.

 

I have launched things but never seen things melted. Could have there been a problem with your compressor running too hot?

 

If it was an old Smith compressor that was made from a V-block engine, it could put out 200 degree air. Used that air one time to dry out a damp electrical box that was tripping a GFI feeding the sump pump that allowed access to a system shutoff in a factory's fire-sprinkler valve vault.

 

I still have 1 of them. Ford 460 , 1/2 & 1/2 motor.

 

Thanks all for your responses. I'm wondering then, why do so many people do this successfully with these size compressors and even smaller ones? I'm thinking of the many YouTube videos and Internet articles. I understand that these are not professionals, but it's hard to disagree with the results. That's not a question to make a point, I'm genuinely curious. What would you say would be the reason to not get these when others have been successful? Aside from taking more time to blow it out, (would this really take a whole day with these compressors? It seems like for most folks it takes 30 min - 2 hours for 6 zones and an equal or lesser size compressor).

Thanks.

 

You can find a youtube video of someone steering their truck with their feet. Not recommended.

 

As long as you are happy doing every last bit of maintenance on your sprinkler system, don't talk to professionals. You are not their friend.

 

people confuse pressure with cfm ( flow ) . Think of it like this , try to blow a marble up a 4 ft incline with your breath , it will go so far then when you run out the marble rolls back . Now take a compressor and keep a CONSTANT flow of air on it , it will make it t the top .

Plus people dont post on you tube when they screw up ( most of the time)

 

When a customer goes price shopping for winterizing, guess how much priority I give his frantic plea for repairs next summer?

Plus people dont post on you tube when they screw up ( most of the time)

Idiots versus insects youtube posts notwithstanding

 

Take a flexible straw and fill it with water bend in a u like a paraplegic on a sink, put it to your mouth and blow, does all the water come out?? Yes, now take a piece of 1" pvc same length,same trap fill it with water put it to your mouth and blow, does all the water come out? No! While you might be able to get most of the water out you don't have the volume to get ALL the water out! The air will just blow over the water eventually. Also for Efficiecy reason, I can blow out a typical 6 zone system twice in about 12 minutes with my 185cfm compressor at 1 min per zone, Takes 35-40 with a 8cfm compressor blowing it out 3 times with water still left in the heads.

 

Well said. My 100CFM can pop up 4-6 zones average resi 6-12gpm, but I never do more than 3 at a time to be safe. Can shut off, drain the main, get the hose out, start the compressor, and put everything away in 20-25 minutes on the average 3-4 zoner here solo.

 

Not a paraplegic, a ptrap stupid auto correct!

 

more like auto-fubar

 

Talk about missing the point! Winterizing is your only chance to check for operation, especially leaks. Air + water and bubbles will tell the story. Our 125 w/remote could do a lot of zones at once, so what, who cares? One may be bragging about how many zones blown in X amount of minutes, totally wrong, you got to "walk the walk", inspecting every head and be looking for ground bubbles from piping, as well as valve boxes. Yes, it takes some time, but in the big picture, the client knows what is what, and you, the contractor, have either winter/spring work! In the pic, the lead and apprentice are inspecting every part of the system.

 

Talk about missing the point! Winterizing is your only chance to check for operation, especially leaks. Air + water and bubbles will tell the story. Our 125 w/remote could do a lot of zones at once, so what, who cares? One may be bragging about how many zones blown in X amount of minutes, totally wrong, you got to "walk the walk", inspecting every head and be looking for ground bubbles from piping, as well as valve boxes. Yes, it takes some time, but in the big picture, the client knows what is what, and you, the contractor, have either winter/spring work! In the pic, the lead and apprentice are inspecting every part of the system.

View attachment 335343

I always walk around while everything is blowing to check seals. and step on 12" heads..