As a licensed irrigator for 21 years, I thought I had seen it all. I stand corrected.

About six weeks ago, a client called us out for their anuual "spring" checkup. It's a system of some 20+ years old, and a system which my company did not install. Pretty routine stuff as far as raising heads ect. We did end up gutting and installing a new solenoid on a valve that was weeping out of the lowest head. As I said, routine stuff.

A few days later, the client calls back to tell us that the valve that we replaced was leaking again. We returned and cut the old valve out (Richdel 2400S) and installed a new one.(Rain Bird DV 100S) A few days later the client called again and said that the same valve was leaking AGAIN!

Now at this point I'm having a real hard time believing that two "brand new" valves were leaking, but I guess anything is possible. So we gut the most recent valve and turn on the water again only to find it leaking also. Each time we would gut the valve there was no trash in it or glue in the places it shouldn't be. We'd flush it just to make sure.

So now we're on valve #3 and it still leaks. I brought a stethiscope and listened to the valve for any leakage and I can't hear any water flowing through it. Now I am really perplexed. I've been in business for 18 years and in the blue industry for about 25 years. We installed 170 new systems last year alone. So needless to say, this was a first.

Long story short, I had an installtion crew meet us at the site and we started to dig up the mainline only to find that tree roots had created a small crack in the main AND the lateral line for the zone that was leaking in the same trench. No water ever made it to the surface of the ground because it was able to find egress via the lateral line and in a cavern that was created in the sandy loam which lead down the tap root of a large pine tree.

I don't call this time of year the Rogaine season for nothing!

Best of luck to all the professional irrigators for a prosperous and relatively stress free season!

All Wet

Texas Licensed Irrigator #1897 since 1984