16
May
2007
You certainly don’t need one of these little gadgets to connect your sprinkler heads, but for little bit of extra money this will save you some time. Before I found one of these poly-pipe saddles the procedure for me to add a sprinkler head to my underground line was a little longer.
Without this I would cut the line with my pipe cutter, insert a barbed “T”, connect a a short length of poly-pipe or funny pipe, and then connect that to an adapter threaded into my sprinkler head.
The saddle avoids you having to cut the pipe and insert the T, and depending on your pipe placement might avoid you having to have the short piece of pipe in between. You simply slip this saddle right over your poly pipe, snap it together and then screw the spike down into the pipe through the saddle until it punctures the pipe and lets the water through. With this particular model from Toro, you end up with a 1/2″ female threaded end to connect your sprinkler head, another line or whatever else your hooking up. Nice and easy.
Posted: Adapters, Handy Tools
11
May
2007
Last year I wrote about the Sidewalk Sleever to tunnel under sidewalks and other above ground obstructions that you can’t trench through, and if you’re doing a lot of tunneling or even have 2 or 3 tough spots then the Sidewalk Sleever might be the ticket.
For most of the jobs I’ve done I only need to go under a sidewalk, and often there is dirt that was brought and sometimes even sand below the cement which makes for fairly easy tunneling. In these cases I’ve been able to get by with a spray nozzle tunneling kit that’s essentially a one-time use deal for under $5.
The tunneling kit consists of two plastic parts that glue onto either end of you PVC pipe. One piece is a hose bib that can thread onto your standard garden hose. The other is a nozzle that concentrates the spray into a narrow sharp stream.
Glue the two pieces onto either end of your PVC pipe and hook your garden hose to the hose bib end. Now you just dig a whole on either side of the sidewalk where you want to go under, turn on the water and start pushing the pipe through letting the nozzle do most of the work for you. Usually I’ll end up doing a fair amount of pushing and jabbing to get the pipe all the way under, or sometimes start again from the other side to get all the way through if you get stuck going one way.
Once you have the pipe through, shut off the water, cut off the nozzle and hose bib from the tunneling kit with your handy PVC pipe cutter and you’re in business. The kit is usually often referred to as a “Walkway Tunnel Kit” if you’re looking for one. The one I’ve used is made by Orbit.
Posted: Handy Tools, Tunneling
