No-Dig Underground Irrigation Repair – All It Takes Is A Heat Gun!
I developed this irrigation repair technique out of desperation. A sprinkler had thrown itself off the ground right next to me one day and landed in a flower pot. The resulting geyser was spectacular, but the location was horrible!
The area around this particular sprinkler was surrounded by cobblestones and bricks, and worse yet, right against a fence. To make things more difficult, I installed a French drain just a foot away! The elevator nipple was missing. Sure enough, a replacement standpipe wouldn’t even start screwing in! Obviously the broken part of the nipple was stuck in the T-connector, deep underground! Before developing this technique, you would have had to dig side trenches about 2 ‘long on each side of the connector, cut the supply lines from each end of the connector, add a sleeve and spacer, then glue a replacement tee . . Not this time! There was too much involved in digging this connector out of the ground!
I have a special purpose tool that I bought from The Home Depot just for this problem. It is the PVC variant of an “easy-out”. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work! I couldn’t get enough pressure (the connector was buried almost to the full length of the puller) and kept scraping my knuckles against a fence post. The standpipe wasn’t PVC, it was vinyl. It was so slippery that the edges of the extractor knives were not biting the inside edge.
But vinyl melts! I have a 1200 watt heat gun I bought it to remove the paint. The extractor tip is metal and by using this heat gun, I heated the extractor tip. Really hot. Fiery sizzle! By pushing the extractor straight down the hole, it gently melted into the broken nipple, deep underground! I let it sit and cool for a few minutes before giving it a spin. Two seconds later, the broken the nipple was removed!
After screwing in a replacement riser, I brought the sprinkler pump to that area to rinse off any dirt that had gotten into the fitting. I put a new sprinkler head on the replacement riser, and guess what? That irrigation repair was done. Not just done, I didn’t even have to dig a shovel of dirt!
The trick was to heat the tip of the extractor enough to melt into the broken vinyl nipple and grab it.
A few weeks later, I had a different problem. I had mounted new planters along a side wall of my house and wanted to use my in-ground sprinkler system to water the new flowers. I had a capped riser right where I need to put a 4 ‘riser. Unfortunately, this was an old steel riser that I had run into with the trimmer several times, and when I removed the tubing, it left the threads of the T-connector stripped and choked with rust! Unlike most of my irrigation repair projects, this line is very shallow. Shallow enough to scrape off the top and really see the damage.
There was nothing I could do to screw the new riser in place, I was going to have to replace the T-connector, or maybe not. I have a fairly full shop and have metalworking tools to make screw thread holes, or cut outside threads for screws. Since you had to go to The Home Depot or Lowe’s anyway to get a replacement tee, why not see if they had a pipe threading tool?
The Lowe’s staff laughed when I asked for a tool to cut the 1/2 “internal thread for an underground PVC tee. Their only advice was to dig it up and replace it. No way! The Home Depot staff won’t he laughed out loud, but they also suggested replacement accessories.
I bought the accessories, but I also found the perfect tool: 18 “long 1/2” steel pipe! Once again, the 1The 200-watt heat gun came to the rescue. By heating the end of the pipe, the thread section, I was able to dip it into the buried tee. It screeched as it sank in and I quickly worked it deeper as I screwed it into place. Without letting it sit, I unscrewed the steel tube to prevent it from welding in place. I repeated this operation several times until the entire threaded section of tubing was inside the nipple of the T-connector.
Guess what? The new replacement 4 ‘PVC riser screwed directly in! Using heat, pressure, and steel threads, I was able to partially melt the underground tee and cut new threads. Not a shovel full of soil was dug up for this irrigation repair!
Since then, I have helped neighbors with their watering repair projects that blew them away – “You can really cut new threads underground without digging” – Wow, thank you Bill, thank you so much!
Not all irrigation repairs can use this technique. Let’s face it, if the tee connector nozzle or connecting pipes cracks or breaks, you will have to dig. But try this tip first and see if it works. In a few minutes you will know if there is a more serious problem. You will get wet standing there, but you will quickly see a bump around the running sprinkler head if there is a broken pipe or cracked nipple. Oh well, at least you tried!
I have had this cheap $ 20 heat gun for more than twenty years. Not only does it do a great job picking up paint, I’ve used it for electrical boat repairs (heat shrink tubing), removing self-adhesive vinyl tile, contact paper, and sanding discs, and even starting fires in my coal pit. This is NOT a hair dryer – keep it safe, keep it away from you at all times!
In conclusion, I was able to use my cheap heat gun and cheaper steel tubing to apply enough heat and pressure to re-mold the stripped internal threads, and enough raw heat to allow the edges of another tool to cut into material that without that tool would have required digging a lot of dirt for these simple projects irrigation repair.