Rebuilding & Burying Drip-Irrigation Water Lines in the Courtyard

Welcome to my big summer project ~ burying the waterlines we laid out last year to water while we were off on summer holiday! Here’s how everything looked after the hoses were attached a year ago…

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How it looked at the start

This part was “finished” in mid-June 2023 literally the night before we drove off for a week to visit our son and his family in South Dakota. Great for watering, but those unsightly, thick garden hoses laid all over the dirt, and running to four different areas of the yard… They have driven me crazy for a year.

Plus, they are tripping hazards. No bueno!

Best thing we have done

I love the two Orbit B-Hyve watering timers/systems we bought through a local big box store last summer! They work beautifully and are easily reprogrammed throughout the year and/or shut off during inclement weather. We were able to shut off both timers in late October last fall so that all the hoses and drip lines had time to dry out before any big freezes.

We also removed the timers themselves and put them away in the shed until Mid-March this year so they wouldn’t freeze. This post is not sponsored but I have found them easy to use; I would recommend this brand. One is fitted inside our garage and runs our main outdoor watering replacing an older system.

The second timer is attached to the wall spigot in the backyard and runs the drip lines and what will eventually be the #1 house line (backyard grass and outside our fence) once the valve is fixed.

Currently the #4 hose line attached to the backyard Orbit B-Hyve timer waters this area with an oscillating sprinker:

This is the second year we are using this kinda sketchy set-up since we haven’t fixed the tree-eating-the-valve problem yet. Hubby had been noodling ideas on where to move the valve in the yard so the tree won’t get it again.

Cutting out the massive root is the main problem, really, plus the sprinkler electrical wire is another issue.

This year’s irrigation project

So, right after school finished for the year, I took up digging narrow trenches around our patio, the small potted plant patio, and alongside the pebbled sidewalk (in a “Z” pattern) and finally a trench over to the oak tree and along the inside of the planter bed.

Hubby came out on the second weekend and helped dig them deeper for me. He’s a big help around here! 🙂

I made sure to figure out what needed changing from when the hoses were first hooked up in late spring after last fall’s removal. The programming was all wrong for where two of the hoses were attached so I made notes after testing each line, then drew arrows to where two needed to be moved.

A third hose just needed to be hooked up. 🙂

Here is a snapshot of the our backyard timer’s set-up. Mr. Ethereal was great as he programmed the inside timer and added these photos so we’d know which number runs what area.

I love how it was laid out last summer and it is nice not to have to redo the set-up! Much easier to move the hoses. 😉

Oddly enough, I could not find the end of the “Back Fence” black poly line, which is right next to the fence itself, to reconnect a host to it. Hubby saved the day as he remembered.

All the leaves and compost had done a good job hiding the black poly which helps keep the leftover water inside it cool for when it is turned on. The trees have also grown so the yard gets much needed afternoon shade.

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Where this year’s project all began

After digging out the dirt while Hubby was gone on a business trip over that first summer week and weekend, I laid the first original black poly line into the trench.

I also tucked it behind the downspout of our underground drainage pipe extension. I unplugged and fed the electrical cord so it could be hidden a bit.

I chipped away some of one of the limestone bricks to get it to fit around the tubing. Love and miss that original white! If you ever build with this type of chopped limestone, you need to seal the stone to prevent it from picking up the color or the dirt surrounding it.

This was a bit of a chore but the stone chips off really easily after you score it with a wedge and with some hammering. 😉

You may recall my very first project here at Manor House when I added the limestone oval around the big oak tree to create a planter bed. I just flattened the dirt around the tree and laid the bricks right onto the ground ~ no digging in needed.

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What about the electrical line?

You can see two pins holding down the electrical cord. I cannot bury this line.

You know I thought about it!

Looking up the building codes, burying the line (or a real pipe meant for electrical plus the actual electrical line) entails digging down 18″ – 24″ below the frost line and for safety reasons. We don’t have the money to have that run yet, so we currently use a 100′ extension cord to bring power from the back patio to the shed.

It just feeds through the shed’s left-hand window. It is plugged into a ground-fault plug and does pop if it gets wet when it shouldn’t. It had been laying out here for two or three years now and we haven’t had any issues.

It runs the heater inside the shed during the winter and now a small rotating fan here in the summer. Helps circulate the air and push the humidity out. 🙂

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After getting all this done…

The funny “holes” you see here were my attempts to dig better (and smarter) into the hard clay with our 3′ x 5″ auger drill bit attached to the cement drill (see it laying on the ground?) since the trenching shovel can only go so far with me stamping down on it. Just not strong enough anymore. (Stinks getting old… waaaaa!)

So, after fitting all of the pieces together, heating up the tubing with hot water to get it to go on easier over the connectors, then laying it in its trenches, and finally pinning the poly tubing down with steel garden pins…

I realized we could bury ALL three of the lines going to this section of the yard! 🙂 The trench would just need to be a few inches deeper…

Mr. Ethereal to the rescue again!

He also worked on connecting the soaker hoses around the tree to the freshly laid poly tubing. He also said that I didn’t need to use all those connectors at the corners. It’s better to leave the poly tubing all one length as much as possible. Creates less places for the connections to come apart under pressure.

This was my attempt the week before to attach the garden hose. Actually, this is a hose we used while living in our RV’s and is sold at Camping World and other places.

Oh well! I needed its service.

We can get a new one if we need to live that way again or decide to go camping. 😉

Hubby says my wrenches were backwards. They should have been reversed and maybe I wouldn’t have had to cut the hose then add back a new connector. I could not get the two to come apart ~ even with spraying twice with WD-40!!! Go figure. 😉

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Here’s how the last part of the lines looked once run. The white hose line stopped at the tree. The first of two watering lines runs to the plants along the east face of the shed, along the southern side of the shed and feed the citrus trees along the western fence. The second line connects and waters the southern fence line’s plants.

And I know this post has gone on really long, I’m sorry! But it was a big project and grew in scale as I realized that we could bury all three hoses making the yard look so much better without hoses laying everywhere. I’ll share more on this area later.

Sorry, meant to get this out on the 4th…

Let me know what you think of all of this. Happy momma indeed . 🙂

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Happy belated 4th, my friends!