irrigation system - any ideas ?

[piston broke]

Hope someone can help.....

my house has an irrigation system which i've never used...

its been leaking and i'm trying to work out where the "stop cock" is to isolate it.

nothing is easy and i'm not the most mechanically minded person...

i've looked near to the pump, where the control box is, but this appears to be for the electrical controls..

on the ground there is a plastic cover which says "HR Products control valve" - took the top of, but it looks like some kind of electrical switch with a couple of wires on the top - i was wary about messing in case i made more problems ! )

any ideas what i should be looking for and how i should turn the water off ?

Any help gratefully received....

[h90]

in my limited understanding, there should be a manual valve before the control valve.

But in Thailand they might not have it installed.

If you don't want to use it, and the tubes are the normal blue PVC tubes. There are "endcaps" you can just close the complete water supply, cut the tube after or before the valve (photo may help). And glue such an endcap on tube. With a few questions and tips + tricks here on the forum it is done very easily even if you never did anything mechanical in the past.

[piston broke]

mess 2 - can't see any valve for it..

some pictures:

[DtemJai]

I discovered an addition metered water pipe 12 years ago – going somewhere overthere [deep underground], ours bills was cut in half, when farang logic was used.

[IMHO]

You've got two outlet valves there to play with (the pink/red handles to the right of the pump in photo #1) - what stops working when you close them?

[kamalabob2]

If Piston Broke is anywhere near Buriram this Friday through Tuesday he can speak English to several representatives of Netafim irrigation. They have a smaller garden irrigation system on display at the Buriram Home Expo. I also viewed the display of Mitsubishi Electric Water pumps and Mitsubishi Commercial Pumps at the Buriram Home Expo Show Booth. If you can not attend the show do not hesitate to PM me questions with photos and I will show them and get answers from the technical experts of Mitsubishi Water Pumps and Netafim Irrigation on Saturday or Sunday.

[xen]

In photo 1 it appears the the faded red ball valve could be where to turn the water off before the pump, but if you turn it off before the pump and the pump turns on you have a very good chance of burning the pump out.

The other three photos show the solenoid valves which cut the water of to the different stations. They should be only 12 volt and it appears that the box is flooding indicating that they are not completely shutting off. A small piece of dirt will often stop them from functioning properly.

Is that concrete the pipes are running though? it looks like a handyman has installed the system rather than a professional installer and that makes it harder to work out what they have done.

If you are not going to use the irrigation it may be easier just to cap of the ends like h90 suggests .

[thailand49]

Personally, I've worked on my two pumps a lot, replacing parts but when I work on it and it does not fix the problem and I'm a pretty handy person. Years ago I went to a major store that sells these pumps and ask the guy for a service person reference which has come in really handy because the majority of the time when I have to call him the cost has not been more than 500 baht, minus any parts. I stand there while he is working and learn worth every baht.

[SidFernwilter01]

In Picture 1 the red ball valve are on the outlet, it appears to be split in two. One of them leading to your irrigation system and the other to the house, maybe. Close the one closed to the pump and see what happens.

Inlets on this pump is on the top.

The installation in this pictures are shitty and very dangerous. Disconnect the electric ASAP.

[Crossy]

The installation in this pictures are shitty and very dangerous. Disconnect the electric ASAP.

Please indicate the dangerous items bearing in mind that the installation is 24V (yes it's shitty).

[SidFernwilter01]

The installation in this pictures are shitty and very dangerous. Disconnect the electric ASAP.

Please indicate the dangerous items bearing in mind that the installation is 24V (yes it's shitty).

One should always be careful with electric, specially when it is mixed with water and tape never know what good ideas a Thai handyman came up with.

[piston broke]

You've got two outlet valves there to play with (the pink/red handles to the right of the pump in photo #1) - what stops working when you close them?

the larger one is the water inlet from the water tank to the pump...

the smaller one (i think) is to the hot water tank,,,,,

[piston broke]

In photo 1 it appears the the faded red ball valve could be where to turn the water off before the pump, but if you turn it off before the pump and the pump turns on you have a very good chance of burning the pump out.

The other three photos show the solenoid valves which cut the water of to the different stations. They should be only 12 volt and it appears that the box is flooding indicating that they are not completely shutting off. A small piece of dirt will often stop them from functioning properly.

Is that concrete the pipes are running though? it looks like a handyman has installed the system rather than a professional installer and that makes it harder to work out what they have done.

If you are not going to use the irrigation it may be easier just to cap of the ends like h90 suggests .

yes.....

not sure who installed it - bought the house second hand and the irrigation system was already in, but it has a leak causing one of the flower beds to be water logged.....

i'm assuming that the concrete pad was installed after the irrigation pipes.....

plan was to isolate the system, but cannot see how to isolate it.....

[SidFernwilter01]

You've got two outlet valves there to play with (the pink/red handles to the right of the pump in photo #1) - what stops working when you close them?

the larger one is the water inlet from the water tank to the pump...

the smaller one (i think) is to the hot water tank,,,,,

The two valves are on the outlet from the pump, have the same pump myself. There is T-pipe splitting the outlet in two, close the big valve and if it works your irrigation system shall be closed.

If in doubt what is what regarding inlet and outlet lift the plastic top off and you will see the pump.

[Anthony5]

Maybe I'm dumb but an irrigation system can only leak when the pump is running, so if you remove the power from the control unit the pump will not run anymore.

[aronp1]

So I take it this is a pressurized system. So the leaking is causing the pump to kick on. The leak is caused by the valve not closing completely. Two of the valves have shut offs, the knob in the center of the valve. If you turn the knob to the right until tight the valve should be closed.

If the ball valve only shuts the water off to your irrigation valves, you can just turn that to the shut position. I noticed that the valves have threaded connections. I don't know how but these type of connections in time will loosen and leak, this may be the reason for the water in the valve boxes. If the leak is before the valve this also will cause the pump to kick on because of the releasing of pressure. If you turn the ball valve off and use a different outsource from the pump, this will not harm anything.

[aronp1]

So I take it this is a pressurized system. So the leaking is causing the pump to kick on. The leak is caused by the valve not closing completely. Two of the valves have shut offs, the knob in the center of the valve. If you turn the knob to the right until tight the valve should be closed.

If the ball valve only shuts the water off to your irrigation valves, you can just turn that to the shut position. I noticed that the valves have threaded connections. I don't know how but these type of connections in time will loosen and leak, this may be the reason for the water in the valve boxes. If the leak is before the valve this also will cause the pump to kick on because of the releasing of pressure. If you turn the ball valve off and use a different outsource from the pump, this will not harm anything.

If you want to use the system, you will need to replace the diaphram inside the valve. If you do one you really should do all of them along with the solenoids too. I would actually replace all the valves with new ones, with slip ends not threaded ends. Like I said before, they tend to loosen and leak better to glue the pipe into the valve.

[piston broke]

So I take it this is a pressurized system. So the leaking is causing the pump to kick on. The leak is caused by the valve not closing completely. Two of the valves have shut offs, the knob in the center of the valve. If you turn the knob to the right until tight the valve should be closed.

If the ball valve only shuts the water off to your irrigation valves, you can just turn that to the shut position. I noticed that the valves have threaded connections. I don't know how but these type of connections in time will loosen and leak, this may be the reason for the water in the valve boxes. If the leak is before the valve this also will cause the pump to kick on because of the releasing of pressure. If you turn the ball valve off and use a different outsource from the pump, this will not harm anything.

If you want to use the system, you will need to replace the diaphram inside the valve. If you do one you really should do all of them along with the solenoids too. I would actually replace all the valves with new ones, with slip ends not threaded ends. Like I said before, they tend to loosen and leak better to glue the pipe into the valve.

to be honest, i'm not a great fan of irrigation systems - would rather do the watering myself and know whats what.....

when i discovered the reason a flower bed was getting waterlogged and found out it was the irrigation system that has been leaking (some bright spark has forced an old plastic bag up an open pipe and its obviously been dribbling out for ages)) i decided to shut the irrigation system off.........

ok, the latest.......

got the pump man round (he fitted a new pump a few weeks ago)......

he tells me to just turn the valve off (its the big red one in the first picture).............i tell him that that's the water imput and its the output we need to sort out........

however having fitted the pump, he tells me that the imput is the other side and the valve will be for theout put / irrigation system....he turns it off and i go in the house to check the water and it still works.....

so problem solved - he did however tell me that the small valve (the one bedded into the concrete) that leads to the water heater is no good as you can't turn it and i should get another valve...so off he goes....10 mins later comes back with a new valve, cuts the pipe, glues the valve in...............total cost 200 b

So one less problem....

[dean008]

An interesting read and an excellent example of what Thaivisa.com should be all about, offering advice and experience to others

[kamalabob2]

If you were starting from scratch or wanted to expand a drip irrigation system it might be worthwhile to speak to a representative of Hunter Industries or Netafim drip irrigation. Both Hunter Industries and Netafim have technical advisors who speak English in Buriram that can help design a professional garden irrigation system or even automatic lawn sprinkler systems. Both Netafim drip irrigation and Hunter lawn sprinklers with automatic timers and water filters. I bought Netafim drip irrigation in Buriram and my wife visited the Buriram Home Show and now understands more about lawn sprinklers and why it is not as costly as she imagined. She had only seen the prices of Rain Bird at the Architect Expo in Bangkok and did not realize similar name brand products were already in Buriram but cost significantly less money.