Mystery Hole (GYMOOTG!)

Off Topic
#1

I am putting some patio pavers down and needed to excavate several inches of dirt/clay/beer cans/t-shirts/whatever the home builders saw fit to deposit in the ground, and found this mystery hole:

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Wires, what may be a capacitor, and something I think says “valve” on it inside the hole/box. Also green lid says “valve box”. It was filled with water when I found it, due to recent rain I guess.

  1. Am I correct in concluding it is for my sprinkler system?
  2. Should I be concerned it was filled with some High Quality H2O, given it has wires in it?
  3. Should I be thinking twice before putting packed dirt, gravel, sand, and pavers over it? I didn’t even know it was there in the first place and am not sure how it would have/could have been located even if there was a problem with it.
#2

Yep, looks like sprinkler

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#3
  1. Yep
  2. Meh. They’re (or should be) “waterproof” junctions, designed to be in the ground, so…
  3. I think so, but if you haven’t ever cared before, you may not care now… I’d be sure there’s no water coming to this valve, if you’re going to pave it over…
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#4

Definitely looks like a sprinkler valve. They occasionally need to be replaced or the wire shorts out and they become dysfunctional. If you’re going to cover it make sure you are prepared to pull up the pavers if you need to get access to it or do without the sprinkler. You can remove one of the wires and see which sprinkler fails to sprinkle to know which one the valve is connected to. You could also consider relocating the valve somewhere outside of your paver area, but that is a royal pain since you have to retrench.

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#5

Good thoughts/advice…thanks. As you implied, moving it is a non-starter. I will at very least make note as to exact placement/center of the thing for future reference.

Should I expect the valve to control a single sprinkler head; a few sprinkler heads (there are only a couple in the general vicinity of the valve hole; or the whole set of sprinkler heads that comprise a “station” as defined by programmable wall unit.

#6

It’ll be a whole station.

2 Likes
#7

Crap…I was afraid that was what it was going to be. Oh well…fingers crossed, I guess.

Worst case scenario, if it fails in the future, I just sell the house :sweat:

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#8

You could always be proactive and just replace and waterproof it now, while it’s exposed…

#9

Those covers/vaults are readily available. You could acquire one, dig out enough on the outside to where a second one sits over this and flush with your pavers and retain access.

Occasionally the gel filled wire splices fail. Occasionally the valve diaphragms fail, and you can rebuild the valve through that small cover. And when they do fail, it would be nice if water leaking out was visibly pouring out a cover in your patio instead of just messing up all your base for the pavers.

Now there are also failure cases where you do have to dig up a couple feet around the valve and completely replace the valve, but nothing you can really do about that if you aren’t relocating the valve out from under the pavers.

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#10

On some control valves, loosening by just a half turn of the solenoid (what @mblatz described as a “capacitor”), will activate the solenoid and allow the water to flow. Watch to see if the zone comes on.

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#11

Regarding replacement of whole valve unit, is this generally a “un-screw, lift out, replace, re-screw” operation (think outlet replacement), or does it necessarily involve cutting and re-welding PVC piping and other stuff. I’ve tried finding stuff on YouTube and whatever but hits for obvious search terms tend to be with regard to main valve manifolds and other things non-specif to what I am interested in.

#12

Been through this. Heed Dan’s advice!

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#13

Alright, I’ll bite… what’s GYMOOTG?

2 Likes
#14

Get your mind out of the gutter. it is not in common use, as I just made it up.

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#15

You are suggesting I simply set one of these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/6-in-Plastic-Round-Box-with-Overlapping-ICV-Cover-107BC/100377386 on top of one that is there (it looks like it would sit directly on top, i.e. one cylinder on top of another) and fill in gravel, sand, and pavers around it. Correct?

#16

Correct, presuming the current top is too low for your finished grade. I’d personally just extend it up and cut pavers to go around it. The cylinders are actually tapered, so they nest in shipping and sitting on the shelf. So you can likely nest the new one over the old one, and control how high it sits by how far down around the old one you dig.

The valve bodies come in either glue in, or screw in varieties. But for either type, you are going to need more space than the box to replace the valve body. But the top of the valve body is usually fastened to the bottom of the body with a ring of screws. All the plumbing connections are in the bottom of the body, and a rubber diaphragm sits between them. If the diaphragm fails, and you can find either a parts kit, or a donor valve of the same model, you can replace the diaphragm through this access.

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#17

Got it. Thanks Kevin! I really appreciate the advice & insight.

#18

The house I bought (built in the 1970’s) had solonoid valves like this which controlled underground soaker hoses for watering the foundation.

You may find the valves are not for above-ground watering.

To determine which zone is being controlled, manually activate each zone in turn while someone sits near the valve and listens: the sound of the valve opening is pretty obvious if one is close.

#19

Thanks, HCD. Not thew situation in my case, but I am sure some people with such a system may have no idea. Assuming these type of foundation watering systems work (well) I wish my house was built with one since I recently forked over ~$8K to a mediocre company to fix some foundation problems I was having. Every North Texas home owner should be instructed on foundation basics (waaaahhh…I can’t get into a foundation basics class…boo hoo!).

But I did follow your advice and determined that the valve did control a specific station. So thanks again…

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#20

We recently had to do a repair/replacement inside one of these goodies. The sprinkler company wanted $1500 for the repair! Since there was digging involved (and we had two valves in there) we chose to replace the “cylinder” with a larger enclosure, more like the size of a xerox paper box. If there is anything else required in the future we will be able to get into that box for repairs. (The cylinders tend to be too small to get your hands and a tool in there simultaneously).

Try Ewing Irrigation in east Plano for parts, supplies, etc. They are a specialty place and should have everything you could need (and then some).