Domestic Nightmares: Fixing a leak in irrigation

This is a sprinkler in my lawn.

The water is not spraying out of the sprinkler like it should, nor coming properly out of any other sprinkler. So much water is flowing out from the sides of this sprinkler that there is not enough pressure in the reticulation system.

Watch the water flow elegantly across the footpath and down the street.

To get a closer look, I unscrew the sprinkler

Remove the guard

Remove the PVC pipe around the sprinkler hole

Can't see a problem. So let's dig a bigger hole.

I can't get a spade to go through grass, even with my entire weight on the spade.

The trick is to use the corner of the blade (I discover eventually).

After hacking a 50 cm x 50 cm square cut of grass

I lever around it with the spade

and lift it out

The soil is stuck together with roots, I found this narrow pointy trowel useful to get the soil apart. Fiskars trowel $1.93 at Bunnings.

Digging around the pipe reveals the problem. The pipe is completely snapped.

I cut the broken section of pipe out with a hacksaw. A full size hacksaw is too big to get into a hole like this. I used this Trojan Junior Hacksaw ($4.70 at Bunnings)

There is a gap of about 35 cm between the two ends of pipe in the ground.

First I reinstall a new T fitting. This is a 25mm x 0.5 inch fitting ($3.45). The fitting that you need to use depends on the size of your pipe and sprinklers. After you cut the old one of the the ground you can take it to the shop when you buy the new one.