August 27, 2010

Underneath the golf course is buried a few miles of pipe and many more miles of wire which make up the skeletal structure of the irrigation system. Every so often, a pipe cracks or a fitting breaks and we scramble to repair it. It’s a big part of what we do. If the water isn’t working, we cannot irrigate.

These past weeks we have had three leaks – one on ten, one on the driving range, and another on #9 green bank. To give everyone an idea of the scope of these repairs, I am posting the following pictures showing the process of repairing the leak we had on ten last week.

The 6" tee split simply due to fatigue, as this one is at least 25 years old.


Here the area has been dug out and the excess water draining from the pipe is being pumped out.


Silvio and Edgar, after building a replacement tee section, carefully re-fit it where the original break was cut out.


After the blue couplers are tightened and the pvc couplers glued, the leak is fixed and the water turned back on! Refilling the excavation is next.


From start to finish, this break took approximately five hours to repair, followed by a 12 hour cure time for the glue to properly set before we were able to put it back in service!