How to fix a stuck pulsating sprinkler
We really depend on our pulsating sprinklers to turn dirty creek water into a well-hydrated garden. So when one starts acting up, we rush to fix it.
The easiest problems are when the sprinklers clog (often from algae growing in the hoses), but this issue has been much less frequent since Mark removed the filters.
More often (now that the sprinklers are aging), we have to deal with
sprinklers that get stuck. Water keeps flowing out, but the
pulsating action isn't enough to push the sprinkler head around in its
little circle. Sometimes, greasing the sprinkler helps, but this week, two rounds of grease failed to have any impact on the sprinkler shown above.
As
I growled and moaned at my sick sprinkler, I realized that if I placed
my thumb where the moving piece at the back of the sprinkler hits the
solid piece, the sprinkler would run normally. Perhaps the
sprinkler had just come slightly out of true (or had worn down the metal
that the moving piece is supposed to hit on)? Twisting a piece of
wire around that stationary piece to emulate where my thumb had been
sitting was enough to get the sprinkler running normally again. My
pride at doing Mark-style troubleshooting knew no bounds!
Of course, the wire isn't
a long-term fix, since the action of the sprinkler tends to bend it out
of true. We can upgrade to a heavier piece of wire, but perhaps
those of you familiar with this type of sprinkler can tell me what's
really wrong based on the description above. Is there something I
can adjust to bring back our sprinkler's charmed youth?
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
You may want to contact their customer service to see if they can replace it for free.
http://www.gilmour.com/customer-service/
From their website: "Lifetime Replacement Policy A Gilmour® product will provide complete satisfaction for the life of the product or it will be replaced free of charge (Industrial and Commercial uses are excluded.) Look for the seal on most Gilmour products."
Frustrating problem. At the front of the rocker just above the nozzle there should be a bumper stop. On my sprinklers the manufacturer supplied bumpers are plastic and eventually they disintegrate with exposure to UV light. I replace mine with a cut down small plug from my garden irrigation system. This plastic is UV stabilised. Use a file to adjust the size of the bump so your rocker arm functions correctly.