Every summer, the sprinkler system at my parents’ house goes wild. This year is no different. Last week, I got a call from my Dad regarding the sprinkler system’s going out of control and that they had to manually shut down the water system at the house for 3 days.

Last weekend, I had to go home to repair the sprinkler system even though it was hitting triple-digit in the Inland Empire. It was too hot to even fall asleep comfortably at night. I had to leave the fan running full-blast throughout the night. Luckily, in the morning, my Dad turned on the AC…or else, I think I could have died in my sleep in the heat.

Here are some pictures I took while replacing the Toro® Anti-Siphon valves with the new ones. These valves are what control the water flow that is being distributed to the rest of the sprinkler heads. Hence, this explains why the sprinkler system was going out of control.

Fig 1: Before picture

Fig 2: Step 1 – Remove the old broken valves

Fig 3: Step 2: Cut pipe!

Fig 4: Step 3: Replace with new Anti-Siphon valve! The blue stuff on the pipes is the special PVC glue. Man…this thing has this extremely toxic odor. It smells like a highlighting marker on crack!

Fig 5: All done! Repeat Step 1 – 3 for the rest of the valves.

Fig 6: Backyard’s view – the black drape you can see in this picture is to prevent the bunnies from hopping over into our backyard. It doesn’t seem to work very well according to my Dad. These pesky wild bunnies are destroying the grass in our backyard and pooping everywhere causing an unnecessary, overwhelming amount of fertilizers (which stumps the growth of plants and trees).

After the Anti-Syphon valves were replaced, everything seems to be back to normal. Even though in our frontyard, there are a couple of leaks that needs to be patched up. However, this has got to wait ‘til next week as I was exhausted from the heat.

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