# Winterizing help



## jtuber

Hi. First time planning to winterizing my sprinklers this year. Last year it was done by someone else. I have an air compressor that has a 5 cfm rating. The attached pic shows my setup. There are 2 ports, one before the valve and the other after. To which port do I attach my compressor to?
Thanks


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## BadDogPSD

I'm pretty sure you'd use the one after the valve, but should isolate the valve from the air so it doesn't get damaged.


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## jtuber

I remember vaguely the guy who blew out my system last year used the port before that anti siphon valve (thats what it's called). I have to take the plug out of this port anyway to drain.


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## RVAGuy

jtuber said:


> I have an air compressor that has a 5 cfm rating


https://www.hunterindustries.com/winterizing-your-irrigation-system
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT blow out your system with a 5 CFM air compressor. That is WAY too tiny and will be the same as not winterizing at all. You need at least 80 CFM. Read the link I sent you please.


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## ABC123

I use a 3 gallon 2.5cfm at 50psi to blow mine out. Works just fine, just takes like 15min a zone because it has to recharge a lot.


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## jtuber

Hmm so now I have conflicting inputs. I read the article and it doesn't tell you the why's you shouldnt do something. The article says you shouldn't blow air thru the back flow valve but that was what the sprinkler guy did for me last winter. Some YouTube channels also say you could use a typical home compressor for the job.

Abc123b what is your procedure? Do you wait for the tank to fully fill each time before you blow out? How big is your yard?


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## g-man

I will start with irrigation tutorials. His process is spot on. Anything outside this is a risk. https://www.irrigationtutorials.com/winter.htm

After you read that, then I will give you my two cents. I designed and installed my system. I know the path of every pipe and all of mine go downhill from the backflow. The only area that the pipe goes up a bit is when the pipe goes underneath the sidewalk. Why is this important?

When the pipes are full of water, anything with some pressure will push the water out. But once the pipe curves up to an uphill area, water will remain in the bend and air will blow thru the top. A high cfm is used to flow a lot of air and hopefully push most of the water uphill to exit the pipe. When you use a small tank in your compressor, you will run out of air and the water will just flow backwards.

I use my compressor on my yard, but I do take some other precautions. I use heavy rocks and my son standing on some in some of the closer heads to prevent them from leaking air. This forces the air flow in the path I want. I go thru all the zone once and then again to clear anything left. I don't think I clear all the water in every pipe to be dry, but I understand the risks. A bit of water, will first need to cover the entire pipe, then it needs to get a hard freeze at 8in deep and then somehow the pipe needs to push the soil to burst. I did use stronger poly pipe on my system too.

I understand my risks and I'm taking a calculated risk with my system. I know that if I screw up, I get to dig and fix it. So far I had -20F days here in Indy without any problem. As the system gets older, I might have some problems in the future.


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## ABC123

Yeah I let it recharge full each time. 8k sq ft 5 zones


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## RVAGuy

I don't know what professionals in your area charge, but mine is only charging me $75. The risk to reward ratio isn't worth it. Of all ways to save money, this is one of the riskiest. $100 would be more than fair and considering the alternatives are digging up pipe or paying a pro $$$ to dig up pipe. Even if there is no risk whatsoever, paying even $100 to not have to go through the hassle of winterization still seems good to me... Noone got into lawns because they were cheap...


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## jtuber

g-man said:


> I will start with irrigation tutorials. His process is spot on. Anything outside this is a risk. https://www.irrigationtutorials.com/winter.htm
> 
> After you read that, then I will give you my two cents. I designed and installed my system. I know the path of every pipe and all of mine go downhill from the backflow. The only area that the pipe goes up a bit is when the pipe goes underneath the sidewalk. Why is this important?
> 
> When the pipes are full of water, anything with some pressure will push the water out. But once the pipe curves up to an uphill area, water will remain in the bend and air will blow thru the top. A high cfm is used to flow a lot of air and hopefully push most of the water uphill to exit the pipe. When you use a small tank in your compressor, you will run out of air and the water will just flow backwards.
> 
> I use my compressor on my yard, but I do take some other precautions. I use heavy rocks and my son standing on some in some of the closer heads to prevent them from leaking air. This forces the air flow in the path I want. I go thru all the zone once and then again to clear anything left. I don't think I clear all the water in every pipe to be dry, but I understand the risks. A bit of water, will first need to cover the entire pipe, then it needs to get a hard freeze at 8in deep and then somehow the pipe needs to push the soil to burst. I did use stronger poly pipe on my system too.
> 
> I understand my risks and I'm taking a calculated risk with my system. I know that if I screw up, I get to dig and fix it. So far I had -20F days here in Indy without any problem. As the system gets older, I might have some problems in the future.


Oh man, reading that guide is like reading a company's disclaimer for spring compressor used in changing a car's struts. Alot of don't. If all of it is true then right off you have violated a lot of rules in there. If I didnt observe my sprinkler guy blowing out my system last year and seeing how simple it was, I would have opted for a pro this year and wouldnt have popped the question.


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## jtuber

RVAGuy said:


> I don't know what professionals in your area charge, but mine is only charging me $75. The risk to reward ratio isn't worth it. Of all ways to save money, this is one of the riskiest. $100 would be more than fair and considering the alternatives are digging up pipe or paying a pro $$$ to dig up pipe. Even if there is no risk whatsoever, paying even $100 to not have to go through the hassle of winterization still seems good to me... Noone got into lawns because they were cheap...


I hear ya. It would be eaiest to paybsomeone to do it. But since I already have a compressor and the procedure is relatively simple, why not taking it on so you dont have to depend on someone else to do it.


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## RVAGuy

@jtuber Yeah, I get not depending on someone else. If you get a cold snap, you could literally go out the night of the frost to winterize then turn the water back on if you wanted to.


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## jtuber

So I used my 4 gallon 5 chm compressor to blow out my sprinkler. I bought a 1" to 3/4" pipe reducer from a big box store and a 3/4 hose blowout kit from Amazon. I hooked it up to the port before the anti back flow valve. I have 5 popup head zones and 1 drip zone. My largest zone has 6 heads. I set my pressure at 50 psi. With this setup I blew out my system. Not sure 100% that I got all the water out. The 5 cfm is really really inadequate. What more important is the tank size. My 5 gallons didn't go far. At full pressure of 145 psi, the 5 gallon tank drained less than 10 seconds. It did blow out the water but I had to do a lot of closing the valve to let the tank fully filled before blowing again. Pretty annoying and time consuming. I kept blowing until I hardly see any water spitting out of the heads. The heads did pop up on the first blow because there was still water in the line. But once the majority of the water was gone, subsequent blows did not pop the heads up. Instead little bit of water just sprayed through the adjustment holes on top of the head. I kept doing that until I didn't see water. Tedious. I am thinking about buying a bigger tank.


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## jtuber

Interesting development. I thought I spent enough time blowing out my sprinklers with my compressor. Today went out again and tried one moe time to see if I could blow out any residual water that collected at the heads since then. Well, at first the heads didnt spit out any water. I tried to block one head to push pressure to the other heads as @g-man mentioned. That was futile. So out of curiosity I pulled one head up and surprise surprise, more water spitting out from that head. Now I am going back and pull up each head and keep it up while running the air through. Like I said, interesting. Wonder if I should throw in the towel and call the pro. $100. That's a lot.


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## RVAGuy

If you think $100 is a lot, it'll blow your socks off seeing what a pro will charge to find, dig up, and repair a frozen sprinkler line... Not to mention the damage to the yard. It's just not worth it man.


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## jtuber

There is always a first time for everything. Fortunately my sprinkler layout is simple. I have no uphill lines to worry about. All of my sprinkler heads are lower than my supply lines so I didnt have to blow water uphill with my weak *** compressor. Plus I went extra careful with lifting one head up at a time to blow out even more water. I am confident that my system is pretty clear of water. My neighbor who blows out his system too for some years now lend me his bigger 30 gallon compressor and it didnt blow out any more water at all. I am content.


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## jtuber

Here is my final setup. This makes it super convenient to blow out the system next year.


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