Sprinkler Blow out question:

[Martinjmpr]

Last year I hired someone to blow out the sprinklers but I took pictures and had him show me what to do so I could do it myself this year.

Just tried, did everything he showed me but got nothing coming out of the sprinklers when I had the compressor hooked up.

I'm thinking that maybe it's because I have a very small "Pancake" type compressor, does that sound right? So what is the minimum size of the compressor/tank that people are using to blow out sprinklers? I don't really want to get another compressor as the pancake compressor seems to work fine for everything else I need it for.

[BPTactical]

The pancake should do it, you just don't have much air volume to work with so it will take a while. Use the manual bleeder valves for each zone valve instead of relying on the manual setting on the clock.
Leave all ball valves @ 45 degrees, don't forget to purge the backflow preventer as well.

[Martinjmpr]

The pancake should do it, you just don't have much air volume to work with so it will take a while. Use the manual bleeder valves for each zone valve instead of relying on the manual setting on the clock.

Where would those be and what would they look like? Last year the sprinkler guy just hooked up his compressor and manually cycled through the zones in the control panel.


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[SideShow Bob]

On most residential irrigation systems just turn the solenoid on the valve body to open the manual setting to open. There should be markings on the body referring to open & clsed.

[BPTactical]

On most residential irrigation systems just turn the solenoid on the valve body to open the manual setting to open. There should be markings on the body referring to open & clsed.

Need to be careful turning solenoids, there is an adjustment range for most solenoids and when you go turning them that goes out the window, sometimes as little as 1/8th turn makes the difference between a correctly functioning valve, a stuck shut or a stuck open.
Residential valves usually have a bleeder screw or knob on the top of the valve, also known as the bonnet. Contact Denver Brass or another large irrigation supplier, be sure to have the brand and model, likely a Rain Bird or Toro - they can give you the bleeding procedure for them.

[SideShow Bob]

You can search the make & model on the interwebz for the procedure if you’d upgrade the 56 K dialup......... Oh, right, Your commadore 64 couldn’t handle the upgrade.

[fairrpe86]

Like BP said, contact DBC Irrigation with at least the brand of valve and they can tell you proper bleed procedure. Pretty easy process to do, just takes some patience with a smaller compressor.

[Martinjmpr]

Thanks for all the advice but at this point my inclination is to either see if I can borrow a bigger compressor or just call the guy I had come out last year. He did mine for $35.

[beast556]

Your compressors if probly fine. I used a 3gal for years to blow my system out. 2 years back I upgraded to a 6gal and it works even better now. Sounds like you have one of the ball valves closed off not letting the air in to the system.

[Ramsker]

The little bleeder screw should look something like the ones below . . . the little black "thingy" next to the big black thingy (the solenoid). You just unscrew those a little bit one zone at a time to open the valve and to blow out that zone. Then close it and do the next one. Seems like it would take forever with a pancake compressor. I used to try to use my 15 gal and that took a looooong time. I found a 33 gal on CL several years ago and that's worked pretty well--has a bit more CFM and a bigger tank.

The process isn't very hard once you do it once. I was kind of intimidated to try it for fear of screwing something up . . . but watched a bunch of videos and it's not hard at all. Just a little time consuming. $35 is a pretty good price it seems these days, so maybe the convenience is worth something.