Although I haven't had a visit from the Men in Black, I have felt that something strange has been going on. You see, on Saturday I went to turn-on the sprinklers and when it hit the first station in the backyard, I noticed that the area by main line was gushing water. Okay, I changed the connection and everything was fine, right? Wrong! When the next station turned-on, I noticed the exact same thing was happening. Alright...I fixed that one as well. Today, When the last backyard station tuned-on, I noticed yet another break. So, what is the culprit behind these mysterious goings-on...a saddle tee. (A saddle tee, as shown in the picture below, is connected to the poly pipe and the screws or nuts are tightened down. You then take a reaming tool or just a drill and make a hole in the pipe. You can then add a riser and screw your sprinkler head onto that).
It was exactly ten years ago when I installed our backyard sprinkler system. Although in years past I had worked almost exclusively with PVC, I decided to go an easier route and use poly pipe. The connections were faster and it took next to no-time to lay the pipe. By using the saddle tees, I was able to be much more flexible in the positioning of my sprinkler heads and, I didn't have to cut-and-splice a compression tee in the line, which saved a great deal of time and aggravation.
Where is this all going? Well, I just wanted to advise any others out there that may have saddle tees that are getting-up there in age, to keep an eye out for this possible problem.
Now, I need to get cleaned-up just in case Agent Sculley decides to drop by.
