How to Fix 5 Common Sprinkler Head Issues

hey what's up guys today i'm going to show you how to fix specific sprinkler problems first i'm going to show you the problem that i'm having then i'm going to show you the solution to it so make sure to use the timeline to skip ahead to the solution of the problem that you're having and i'm putting all the problems first in the video so you can see hey is this a problem that you're having and is the solution to it in this video so if it isn't you can just skip to the next video if you like the way i organize my content to help you get the information you're looking for as quick as possible let me know by giving me a like comment or subscribe but let's jump into the video the two kind of sprinklers i'll be talking about in this video is the spray type where it sprays out a consistent stream and then this rotary type where it's spraying out more of a line stream and the head rotates the first problem is when the sprinklers are not putting water where they're supposed to be the second problem is when you have a rotating sprinkler where the head stopped rotating the third problem is a broken sprinkler head you're going to know this because the head of the sprinkler is going to be spraying water where it's not supposed to or you might even have water jetting up from the ground where a sprinkler head would normally be the fourth problem is the sprinkler head is too low in the ground the fifth problem is when you can't get a replacement sprinkler to match and the one you have originally has got a smaller hole than the one you're trying to replace it with all right the solution to the first problem where it's putting water where it isn't supposed to be i'll cover the spray type of sprinkler first and then i'll cover the rotor type so with the spray type there is usually a screw in the middle um sometimes it's a hex screw sometimes it's just a flat head screwdriver and not on all models but some models if you tighten or loosen that screw it will increase or decrease the distance and amount of water that comes out of the head so if it's spraying too far and getting water where it isn't supposed to be adjust that screw to try to reduce it if possible it's always a good idea while the sprinkler is running to clean off the top of the sprinkler either the riser or even the base around it and look at the brand and try to understand what type of sprinkler it is sometimes it'll say the model number in which case you can always look it up online to try to see you know how you can adjust it but another common thing is it'll say 360 or it will have an adjustable head to where you can adjust the angle in which it's spraying and sometimes you twist the very top and sometimes there is something just below that you can twist and that'll adjust the angle of the spray pattern and you'll notice that it changes on one side and stays stationary on the other side so you want to first that side that stays stationary put that where you want it to be and if it isn't in the right spot grab the base of the riser and turn that to where it is in the right spot then twist the top part to have the angle you're wanting to spray it where you want it to spray it now when it comes to the rotors they're similar but unfortunately they're not all the exact same so when you're looking down at the head here there's a couple things that you want to find one is a plus or a minus sign so you can see on this hunter here the minus is on this side the plus is on that side we're on this rain bird plus is on that side minus over there and what that plus and minus is is going to increase or decrease how much it rotates the plus obviously makes it rotate more the minus makes it rotate less now sometimes you'll need this tool which is a got a special little thing on the end here i think for the orbits and the hunters and it makes it easier to turn these because it like fits in that groove you know you could probably see if you had a big enough flat head it could probably work there and on a lot of the others it's just a flathead screwdriver that's all that this is if you get rid of these do it's just a flathead screwdriver what this is for and even on this guy right here these little things is you can put it into there twist it and then pull up to get the riser out do the same thing there and that's when you're working with them off you can pull it out grab it with your hand and then play with the head now these have what's called a fixed edge and an edge that moves so a fixed edge is where it starts and on this model right here going to the left that's the fixed edge so it's going to start right here and then i can turn this and it's going to rotate to right there and then it's going to come back to that fixed edge now if i increase this if i turn this thing right here to the positive side it's going to change how far it moves so here's our fixed edge right there now when i turn it this way you can see now it's almost going all the way around now what's tough is when you're already in the ground and you have some model you don't know which side is the fixed edge is it the right or the left so as it's on it's going to be going back and forth you know decrease this so just find your plus or minus use the tool that you need decrease it and then if you notice oh hey it didn't go as far to the right or the left then that opposite is your fixed edge and if it's a new thing it'll say right on there like this one says the left is the fixed edge or i actually think on these hunters it's the right that's the fixed edge that's why it gets a little bit confusing now when you install this or when it's in the ground you can't really move the fixed edge so if it's already installed and your fixed edge is messed up which it really shouldn't be but it's possible then you're gonna have to adjust where it's starting and they can be a little different there as well one way that always works is you find your edge so we know this one's on the left right so let's all right now this fixed edge where the arrow is it's right here and let's say that that's where we want it is we want it facing that way but it happens to be facing this way you need to turn the sprinkler head so it's facing that way now one thing you can do is you can just take off this top part you don't have to spin the whole body where it's connected because you want to make sure when you're installing this you get a good connection and you don't do it too loose to where it's going to leak from the bottom so hopefully as you're installing it's getting tight and you can just get lucky and bam it's right where you want it now if not is you can take just this top part off you'll notice that inside here there's these little grooves and this bottom part that's what is that's what those grooves touch so you have you know doesn't move i can turn it put it in doesn't move so you want to get your fixed edge set okay we're this way we want it facing that way so i'm going to put this back in to where it's facing that way now when you tighten this up that top might move you'll hear it moving but just get it back on and tight onto your base so that the seals in here don't leak and then when you go all the way to the right and come back to your left now it should be right where you need it and that's how you can get your fixed edge where you need it to be then of course you're going to okay hey where's our next edge oh it's right there i need it to come more this way i need it to be 180 degrees i'm gonna increase this all right so now that you've got it rotating and starting and stopping in the areas that you're trying to get with your lawn you can now adjust how far the distance that it's throwing the water and that's done by the screw at the very top sometimes it's not a screw you might have to use that special tool again and sometimes it might not be there but usually there is a screw there and by turning it right or left you can increase or decrease how far the water is spraying out of the nozzle so that's how you adjust a rotary sprinkler so if your rotor type sprinkler is not rotating there are two fixes for that now ultimately if you end up replacing the sprinkler head that'll obviously work but you might look out and what you'll want to do is dig up just enough if you even need to to remove the top portion of that sprinkler and then take the inner parts and go clean it really really really well and then put it back on and see if the seals and the rotating part work again if not then you're just going to have to go to the next solution which is how to replace a sprinkler head all right in order to fix a broken sprinkler head the first thing you want to do is find a way to mark it in the lawn so that you don't accidentally hit it when you go to dig it up most shovels will work if you have one that's on the far right here that's around with a point i find it to be the easiest alright now you want to dig around the sprinkler head and remove some of the grass some tips is go slow you're not in a rush don't want to accidentally damage the sprinkler head anymore than it is and try to pull up the dirt and place it to the side to where you can just put it back in exactly how you found it now there's two parts of the sprinkler head you can see here i'm holding the base with one wrench and then unscrewing the top just so i can remove the riser and the innards now if you're lucky you only have to replace this piece and if you happen to know what kind of sprinkler you have and you can go get a direct replacement you can get away with just replacing this piece however a lot of times these have been here 10-15 years they might not even make this model anymore or even if they do the hardware store that you go to you can't find this model so unless you know exactly what it is like you just replaced it last year and have an extra one in the garage i would recommend removing the entire thing before you do that you want to make sure the dirt is a little bit moist if it's bone dry the dirt is just going to fall right back into the hole but if it's a little bit moist that hole will be set there now it's a lefty loosey ready tidy you want to make sure you're not just unscrewing the head and unscrewing the entire thing and you're going to remove it from the ground now you can kind of see what it is and you could measure it take some pictures and then go to the hardware store but i 100 percent definitely recommend taking this to the hardware store because what might happen is you might buy a head like the one i'm showing right here and then you realize like wait a minute this is a different size they looked like the same size but this one's actually a little bit shorter and it has got a larger circumference so it's not going to fit in that hole i'd have to dig a lot deeper so if you want to make your job easier trust me just bring in the entire thing and try to find the exact same one to replace it with if you can't just make sure you're matching everything same thread size same length same diameter same spray pattern and it'll make your job much much easier now sometimes when you remove the sprinkler on the bottom there'll be a little piece of an extension and you want to make sure you transfer that over to the next head most the time this won't be on there but sometimes you'll see a little riser bar on the bottom here like this one here and if that's the case you want to make sure that you just take it off of the old sprinkler and put it on the new sprinkler head just so that it's at the right height then very carefully you want to lower the sprinkler back into the hole and screw it back on the reason you want to be careful there is you don't want any dirt to fall down and go inside the sprinkler you can clog up the filter in there if you feel that some of that happened no big deal just take off the top of the sprinkler so that the body's still there flush it out by running the sprinkler with some water and then put that back on all right now once you have the sprinkler replaced you can just follow the steps in the solution one where you're adjusting the spray type to make sure that it is watering the parts of the landscaping that you're wanting all right to fix the problem that it is too low into the ground your current sprinkler you're going to want to buy one of these cut off risers and the reason it's called a cut off is you can cut it at these different areas to get it the exact length that you desire now when you remove the sprinkler head it's important to look at the bottom you'll see here that i have female threads so the riser you want to buy will have female threads on one side and male threads on the other side that way when you screw it into the sprinkler head and then you reinstall it in the ground it's connecting with those female threads just like it did when you pulled it out of the ground now you might have noticed on the other one that i replaced there was a riser that was male to male so just pay attention to what you need when you go to buy it if you need a longer mail to mail one then make sure you get that one all right and this last solution was something that i think was really unique to my situation where the old sprinklers i was trying to replace were extremely slender meaning the diameter was just thinner than anything that was available to me at my local hardware store so the reason this is a problem is you can't just swap them out you're going to not be able to get it into the hole so my only solutions were one either dig up all the way down to where it's connecting which would be a lot of work or i could do what i did which basically i got a two inch sprinkler instead of the four inch and at the bottom i put some risers on it that were thin enough to fit into the hole so that way i wouldn't have to dig more than two inches down and it worked out well i did rise them up slightly because it was only two inches rather than four where it's going to pop up just to make sure it would work great and it did work out really well for me so if you happen to run into that same situation there's an easier solution for you than digging all the way down to the pipe i hope you found this video useful if you did you want to let youtube know if you like comment or subscribe it'll be more likely to show it to other people but i really appreciate you watching and i will see you next time

Channel: Walt's Reviews

Views: 83,026

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Id: m6t35voD7v0

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 08 2021