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When must you have your system winterized? I'm still lightly watering the reseeding of my lawn (on designated days only), but I don't want a frozen cracked Back Flow Valve. Does this need to be done by Thanksgiving or is that pushing it.
Buy yourself a small Sears compressor for about $150 and blow the water out before a hard freeze. Your system is probably 4 to 6 inches below the soil so the freeze has to be a good duration. Thanks giving in Cary, IMHO is doable for you.
It hasn't been below freezing yet, and I wouldn't think you'd need to be concerned unless it stayed below freezing for some period of time. So I wouldn't sweat it.
i unscrew the backflow unit,very easy, bring it in,and cover the two tubes comming out the ground with plastic bags and rubber bands, cover both with a plactic storage bin,a brick or two on top,done. oops shut the water off first! ive never drained the system. they dont freeze 6'' down.
i unscrew the backflow unit,very easy, bring it in,and cover the two tubes comming out the ground with plastic bags and rubber bands, cover both with a plactic storage bin,a brick or two on top,done. oops shut the water off first! ive never drained the system. they dont freeze 6'' down.
That's pretty much what I do, only I use plastic bags and electrical tape. I don't even bother with covering it up any more than that. I don't worry about the pipes freezing down below 6". That was in fact a criteria I used when I was interviewing installers; if they said they laid the pipe only an inch or two down, they were not getting the job.
1952 Kid and Todd M. - The previous owners of my house paid $150 to have the system winterized last fall, and that is exactly what they did. Instead of paying them $150 in the Spring, I took the backflow out of the garage and hooked it up myself and turned the water on and tested the heads. I was surprised, when I removed the plastic over the pipes, where the backflow connects, they were full of water. They never blew out the system with air. I too will remove the backflow and store it in the garage and cover the open pipes with plastic. I'll use electrical ties to hold the plastic on. Looks like I can wait a few more weeks before I winterize.
If that is all they do to winterize a system, $150 seems a little extreme for a 5 - 10 minute job. Maybe other landscapers charge a lot less.
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