Sometimes Simple Can be a PITA

[Jim Koepke]

We have a field hydrant in our yard and greenhouse. For those who are not familiar with these the top looks like this:

field hydrant.png

They come in various lengths and the bottom is supposed to be buried deep enough to avoid freezing. The valve is at the bottom and is actually a two way valve. In the off position the pipe will drain so there isn't any water to freeze.

Our water flow in the greenhouse started to diminish over time. The other hydrant on the same branch seemed to be fine. So it was time to dig out around the base of the greenhouse hydrant. The feed line is a semi-hard plastic pipe so it was pretty sure there wasn't something pressing against it to drop the flow. The hydrant was removed and a connection to a hose was jerry rigged. The flow was good, hmmmm. I do have a replacement hydrant but it is a taller one and might cause problems for my 4'-10" wife. Besides, my philosophy is why use something new if what is old can be repaired. There is also my curiosity about how these things look on the inside.

Sure glad to have purchased a 24" monkey wrench years ago. Also a large Parker vise on one of the benches was a help. The valve consist of a rubber cylinder with a dome threaded onto a rod that is controlled by the up and down movement of the handle. In the down position it seats on a seal to the water supply and the drain hole is open. When it moves up inside the chamber there are channels for water and the cylinder blocks the drain hole. It appears that over time the valve cylinder began to loosen from the rod and its travel became limited. So things were cleaned, a little bit of mineral oil was applied to facilitate assembly and all seemed good. It was dinner time.

By next morning it came to me that the pipe wasn't inspected and with all the crud on the outside there might be crud on the inside. Better take it apart now than to get it back in place and discover a problem. The pipe was fairly clean, but what the heck a little more clean wouldn't hurt.

Everything was taken back to the greenhouse and the hydrant was screwed in to the water line. The shut off valve is a short walk away to the well house. Came back and it was leaking at the supply connection, hmmmm. The water was turned off and when an attempt was made to remove the hydrant from the line, the coupling snapped. Somehow in my efforts the hydrant was cross threaded in to the supply coupling. Off to the hardware store to buy a 3/4" elbow with a female thread to a compression fitting.

When driving in to town there are two main roads at the edge of town to get to the same place. Like Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road take it. Just for fun I decided to time the two ways to see if either was faster. One has less signals and a higher speed limit. Turns out it takes about 3 minutes longer to get to the same destination. It is often more enjoyable to drive the longer way due to less traffic and fewer signals. Oh well, now I know.

Went to my favorite hardware store and they didn't have the part. He suggested the other non-Borg hardware store. (For those who are not familiar with the term Borg, it comes from Star Trek and is a reference to big box hardware stores as in, Orange Borg and Blue Borg for Home Depot and Lowes.) They did have the part. While checking out I mentioned to the man helping me that a home repair isn't done right unless one makes three trips to the hardware store. One to buy the parts you think you need, the second to buy the parts you actually need and the third to return all the parts you didn't need. I told him I cut out the third trip by just keeping all the extra parts. He mentioned that he follows a different philosophy of tossing all the extra parts so you don't drive yourself crazy looking for them next time you need them.

So today I'm thinking what is the best way to cut the pipe with the broken piece stuck inside. My big pocket knife was put in my pocket and given a few swipes on a stone. The pipe seemed a bit heavy for that. None of my small saws seemed to be the easy answer. Then it came to me, my 2" chisel would be fine for this:

2%22 Chisel.jpg

This thing doesn't get used a lot, but it is handy when it is needed.

The chisel's edge was honed, a mallet, a piece of scrap wood to set the work on were taken to the job and the pipe was chopped clean. This is a slightly flexible pipe as opposed to the more common solid plastic pipe. A solid plastic pipe would be easy to cut with a piece of mason's line with a couple of handles on the ends.

A few drops of mineral oil on the connector and the fitting was going fairly well into the pipe. That is when it hit me the hose clamp was not on the pipe. Glad those things open up so it can be installed after the fact. With a little care the bottom of the hydrant was tapped with a mallet and the assembly was back together.

A walk to the well house and back to turn on the water, no leaks. Checked the water flow and it was good. The hose shoots a good stream about 15'. This is good because we often have more than one hose hooked to the same hydrant. Clamped the hydrant back on its support, filled the hole and came inside to have a sandwich.

On to the next project.

jtk

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My sympathy! Did I mention I hate plumbing?

[Bruce Volden]

I'm about 1 week away from an install of ~250' of plastic for a hydrant near my barn!
KARMA?
PS--what Ken said!

Bruce

[Bruce Wrenn]

First they are called freeze proof hydrants. Second, be prepared to dig it up again, because you put mineral oil on plastic insert. That's what the white teflon pipe dope is for. The MO will deteriorate the plastic over time. We usually use an 18" - 24 " piece of galvanized pipe to connect to street ell and to water line. This helps prevent breaking of plastic fitting at bottom of hydrant.

[Jim Koepke]

First they are called freeze proof hydrants. Second, be prepared to dig it up again, because you put mineral oil on plastic insert. That's what the white teflon pipe dope is for. The MO will deteriorate the plastic over time. We usually use an 18" - 24 " piece of galvanized pipe to connect to street ell and to water line. This helps prevent breaking of plastic fitting at bottom of hydrant.

I have heard them called many things, some shouldn't be repeated on a family oriented forum.

I must have relied on the wrong information, machinedesign.com has this to say about lubricants:

Recommendations. Mineral-oil-based lubricants don’t attack most plastic materials and offer excellent performance for the dollar in general plastics applications.

At least if I have to dig it up again I will know the likely problem.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

I'm about 1 week away from an install of ~250' of plastic for a hydrant near my barn!
KARMA?
PS--what Ken said!

Bruce

The pipe for our system looks like it was on a roll. Likely easier to deal with than gluing sections together.

Whoever did our original installation didn't dig it deep enough. Our line freezes in the winter if it stays below freezing for any length of time. We don't need to do much watering at that time of year anyway.

jtk

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I never knew that the whole purpose of these was freeze proofing. That's interesting. I learn something every day. Sadly, I forget two somethings every day.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I learn something every day. Sadly, I forget two somethings every day.

Welcome to my world! Now what were we talking about?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

So, what I LOVE about this:

1. You did the work.
2. You fixed it

I always hate it when they don't have a usable part. There is a specific hardware store that I am told has all those hard to find plumbing connectors. I have only been there a couple of times and they had what I needed when no one else did. It is much further than my local store.

[Curt Harms]

So, what I LOVE about this:

1. You did the work.
2. You fixed it

I always hate it when they don't have a usable part. There is a specific hardware store that I am told has all those hard to find plumbing connectors. I have only been there a couple of times and they had what I needed when no one else did. It is much further than my local store.

The only trick with some of those stores like that is you gotta hope there's a gray beard around who's worked there forever and knows where to find that oddball whats-it with dust and cobwebs that date from the LBJ administration covering it.

[Jim Koepke]

The only trick with some of those stores like that is you gotta hope there's a gray beard around who's worked there forever and knows where to find that oddball whats-it with dust and cobwebs that date from the LBJ administration covering it.

Most of the time the reason the old codger knows where it is is because he was the guy that opened it when it came in and put it in what he thought was the logical spot. That happened when I was working on an oddball project when living in California. One of the 'old time' hardware store owners knew they had the part, but his brother put them away. So he and I went in back to search for them. He found them hanging from the rafters.

This was to repair an outdoor light fixture that mounted on the corner of a building. It makes it so the lamp will light two side walkways with a singe fixture. Just try finding one.

jtk

[Scott T Smith]

JIM, I have these same hydrants all over my farm. You can actually partially rebuild them without digging them up. Simply unscrew the head from the stand pipe and the rubber seat removes from the top.

scott

[Jim Koepke]

JIM, I have these same hydrants all over my farm. You can actually partially rebuild them without digging them up. Simply unscrew the head from the stand pipe and the rubber seat removes from the top.

scott

Thanks Scott, I figured that out after the fact. On mine when it was taken apart the rubber cylinder at the bottom was loose and came undone by the unscrewing of the fixture. The channels in the working section also had a little scale built up that needed to be removed. Though if this does happen again, I will likely try to repair it by the method you suggest.

jtk

[paul cottingham]

Brings back memories of my dad waking me up in the middle of the night because a pipe burst on our irrigation system, (one of the rare hard freezes we had here in Canada's lotus land) and was spraying water everywhere. We decided to fix it that night, (he had a day job) and I remember what a miserable job that was, digging it out and fixing the burst. Luckily, my dad, despite his small stature (5'7" and 150 lbs soaking wet) was a digging machine, so we were able to get it fixed quickly. It was cold and miserable.

[William C Rogers]

Brings back memories of my dad waking me up in the middle of the night because a pipe burst on our irrigation system, (one of the rare hard freezes we had here in Canada's lotus land) and was spraying water everywhere. We decided to fix it that night, (he had a day job) and I remember what a miserable job that was, digging it out and fixing the burst. Luckily, my dad, despite his small stature (5'7" and 150 lbs soaking wet) was a digging machine, so we were able to get it fixed quickly. It was cold and miserable.

I knocked one over with the blade on the tractor in freezing temp. Called a plumber $125 hole dug, fixed and I stayed warm.