# Irrigation valves for hard well water? Problems



## Chocolate Lab (Jun 8, 2019)

I have an irrigation well and the water has high mineral content. When seeding in my bermuda lawn I thought I'd just use a hose bibb timer with different zones, but three different ones of them stuck open and failed to work. Still not sure why, as both Orbit and Melnor said it shouldn't be a problem, at least not for a while.

I got my hands on some cheap closeout Rain Bird irrigation valves and will try them next, but do you think they will work? I had one irrigation place tell me I'd probably need expensive dirty water valves, another large irrigation supply house on the web tell me it shouldn't be a problem for regular valves or even a hose end timer (which it obviously was), and Rain Bird themselves tell me a hose end timer probably would run into problems but a regular irrigation valve should be fine.

One more thing, the hose bibb timer failed right away, so I even wonder if it's not the minerals but the pump somehow. But my pump pressure stays between 30-50 PSI (and I've never had it shut off from too little pressure) which is pretty typical. So I don't see why that would be it.

Any thoughts from anyone?


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