It's really easy!
Pay a professional irrigator $2500 to do what he does everyday to make his living!!! If you know how to fix it, it would have already been fixed and you wouldn't be here asking us how to fix it!

You can rent a metal detector and look for them that way. If it is a standard spray head by Rain Bird the nozzle has a metal screw in the center. You can dig at the edge of the lawn and look for the pipe and then follow it till you get to the sprinklers.

Here is a link that might be useful: do_it_your_self_site

Thank you ted123, my neighbor has a metal detector we can use. We will try that. Thank you.

All Wet, sorry you are so bitter about people not paying the money to professionals. We had a "professionl" pool company build the pool. They made a mess of the sprinkler system. They were suppose to cut,cap and mark pipes that the came across. They didn't and now we have water damage under the deck. We are fighting that too. They said they would fix the sprinkers after wards, they didn't. In the mean time plant life is stuggling.
We did call in two different "professionals" to see about fixing the sprinker system. We were told by both of them that it can't be fixed to just put in a new system. Not that it will be harder or longer, but that it can't be fixed. A whole new system!! In a one and half year old home. We found and paid a guy to help us make sense out of all the cut wires, by the way he was a "professional". A "professional CPA" who enjoys working on systems in his spare time. From there we got 9 out of 12 zones up and running. Some of the old zones are not needed since there is a pool there now. Almost anyone can do it, it just takes time and research. We(me and my husband)have fixed broken heads, broken pipes,rerouted pipes,moved and added heads for coverage and put in two new valves. We aren't "professionals" and we are fixing it with out putting in a whole new system. When we find the missing heads we will fix the rest of the system. We have spent maybe 1/4 of the price so far, and we all ready got the pipes to fix the back. We just can't find the heads in the back since we only used the system for 6 months before we built the pool. So why should we pay a professional? Not in this suituation.

rhoni, good answer! Some sprinkler heads don't have a whole lot of metal in them, but a good metal detector should pick it up - particularly if you have black poly pipe that uses the metal bands to secure the pipe to the barbed fittings.

Rhoni,
"Why should we pay a professional?"
There are a number of reasons including leaking pipe from the old system undermining the pool decking and compromising the integrity of the concrete decking and/or the gunite shell of the pool. (Concrete breakout and repair is expensiveÂIÂd say it probably starts around $2500 or maybe more.) A professional irrigator would provide you a design which provides some semblance of distribution uniformity, professional grade products, (unlike the "material" sold at the big box stores) and a warranty, not to mention insurance in case of an accident or mishap. IÂm sure there is no warranty from your "professional" CPA on your taxes, much less on the work he did on your system. I donÂt profess to be a CPA, so I have a CPA do my TAXES.
You see Rhoni, a professional irrigator is going to access the damage done to the existing system and give you his professional opinion on how best to rectify the situation. This not only includes the integrity of the plumbing servicing the system, but heÂll also recommend changes to the design/layout of the system to best cover the "new" areas created when you plopped a pool in the middle of the existing system/design. ItÂs not just a matter of reconnecting pipe and eureka, and itÂs as good as a "new" 1 ½ year old sprinkler system.
It sounds as if you had 2 different IRRIGATION professionals tell you that the system needed to be renovated for similar amounts of money. But you chose to essentially call both of them ripoff artists and tackle the job yourself. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
So go ahead and hook up your pipe again. Let it water your pool, decking, summer kitchen, house, fencing ect. all the while leaving dry areas which cant be covered short of adding heads or complete zones. When it doesnÂt cover properly, I DARE you to call those same 2 contractors whose time you wasted previously and bid the "repair" work. I bet they give you a bid of $2500 or probably more.
But please, please, PLEASE donÂt call ME to come repair it. As I have told people in the past, "I can put spinners on your Yugo, but I cant wave a wand and turn your Yugo into a Cadillac". IÂve been a licensed IRRIGATOR for 24 years, but IÂve never been much of a magician.