Irrigation Drama

Since August we've known that there was a leak near Longstreet Dr across from the pro shop.  In that area 25 years ago, a leak was repaired and since that time a valve was installed.  It was our hope that this new leak would turn out to be the elbow that had previously been repaired or the valve/fittings that were installed years ago.  The location of the water we discovered in August and the fact that it seemed to be a very slow leak allowed us to wait until irrigation was no longer required before digging it up.  Since the leak is so close to the pump station there is no way to work on it without shutting down the entire system. 

This past Monday we excavated the area beside the road and found the old elbow repair and the valve we installed were both secure.  We pressurized the line and found that water was coming from beneath the road.  More digging in that direction uncovered an obvious issue with the quality of the original pipe installation from the early 90's.  A 24" diameter corrugated metal pipe sleeve runs across the road.  The 10" pvc irrigation mainline runs inside the sleeve.  That sleeve is far too big for a 10" pipe and there were no pipe joint restraints used.  The mainline joints were pulling apart and water was appearing in the only place it could...in the soil outside the road.  When we hoped for the best and planned for the worst it never occurred to us that the pipe beneath the road would have been installed that way.  "Worst" in our minds was the elbow fitting we'd previously repaired and blocked with concrete.  That would have been a 2 day job for this contractor.  

We are taking out the sleeve and installing new pipe with joint restraints and bedding in aggregate.  The contractors have been awesome and they have had a civil engineer on site the entire time.  I'm confident that the new pipe beneath the road will not leak anymore.  We can only hope the other 11 road crossings don't look like this one.  

Dirt and Stone stockpiled at our shop

new pipe with aggregate bedding, pipe restraints, and thrust blocks

Didn't have any of these restraints on the original pipe. 
Just gasketed pipe pushed together

Crossing the outbound lane and median

The white line across the pipe is where the pipe sections were pulling apart

Cutting away the sleeve shows how much room the pipe had to move around

Our first view of the problem 

A mass of concrete on top of the old elbow that was replaced in the late 90s

Hand digging around the valve

Day 1