Watering System

Over the years the gardens and lawns had been set up with at least two watering systems. One was an extensive set of sprinklers, including pop-up sprinklers for the Nature Strip and the front lawns. All but the pop-ups have been sealed off and used in several places to supply a dripper and soaker hose arrangement. This is presumably a response to the 10-year long drought and ban on sprinklers imposed on Melbourne up until 2011. And the pop-ups for the Nature Strip were destroyed.

A main in-line tap near the water meter supplies water through 25 mm white plastic pressure pipe to a maze of nine 24 V solenoid valves controlled by a master electro-mechanical control box mounted on the East side of the house behind the side gate. From the solenoid valves white plastic pressure pipes and 19 mm black poly pipes supply drippers and soaker hoses.

I found that many of the nine watering zones were damaged, with broken pipes, broken electrical wiring, holes in supply poly pipes from digging forks, and buried solenoid valves. It has required a lot of work to repair and make good the watering system. It was evident that while several zones were functional, they all had uncorrected faults that wasted water.

Update Jan18: All water points stopped working. This was traced to a broken Common (black or white) somewhere between the controller and the first solenoid in the wiring for the Common (#5 - East side fence and path behind gate). Fortunately, amongst the maze of white wires at that solenoid there was one that still connected to the controller, so that was used as the Common for #5 and for #9 (Back Garden).
To get the remaining circuits working required a new Common to the nearest solenoid, to solenoid #6 (Front Garden under Den window). Instead of using the twin flex that was already in place and had been used by others to bypass a problem that I had solved earlier, I repurposed the Active wire that went to solenoid #8 (Nature Strip) since this was not being used and it conveniently went via the pit for solenoid #5.
While making this repair, I also got the lawn pop-ups working for the main lawn, and installed one in the west lawn to also water the tree there.

Controller

The handbook for the Lawn Genie Model L70209P is available here (1.5MB). The Lawn Genie is a nine-circuit dual-program electro mechanical controller that runs of mains electricity and has a 9 V backup battery for the program. It switches in turn any or all of the nine 24 V solenoids that can be connected to its terminals. The switching can be manual or according to one or both of two programs.

The handbook recommends use of 18 AWG plastic covered thermostat control wire (stiff multi-strand wire with a hard plastic jacket). Much of the wire in the garden was this, but various poor repairs appear to have used whatever was on hand.

Solenoid Valves

Nine Zones

1.	WEST SIDE, incl. behind carport, under front music room window, side gardens each side of path, and courtyard.
2.	WEST SIDE LAWN popup and water taps behind water tank and in carport (was labelled West Side Front).
3.	MAIN LAWN popups (was labelled Central Front Garden).
4.	Disconnected (was labelled Central Front Lawn East).
5.	EAST SIDE FENCE & NEXT TO HOUSE behind Gate.
6.	FRONT GARDEN UNDER DEN WINDOW.
7.	EAST SIDE & FRONT GARDENS, incl. each side of path nr carport.
8.	Disconnected (was Nature Strip).
9.	EAST BACK GARDEN and REAR of Pool Room (stop-valve).

#1 solenoid is in the path just behind W gate. The pipe goes South to a T that feeds the West garden beds against the house. A further T to the rear corner of the house. The main pipe goes to the rear West corner of the garden bed against the West fence.

#2 solenoid - its somewhere near the west fence. The pipe went in front of the now-cutdown main claret ash and a branch into the garden in front of the music room was being choked by the roots. This branch is now used to feed a pop-up sprinkler for the replacement tree and lawn. It does not water the garden under the front window. The pipe also goes to the rear West corner of the carport - a new plastic tap there - and into the carport where another new plastic tap is located - supplies water for vehicles in the carport.

#3 solenoid - don't know where it is or what it does, if anything.

#4 solenoid - I think the valve is against the East front-side fence. Supplies pop-up sprinklers in the main front lawn.

#5 solenoid is against the East fence outside the kitchen. It waters along the East side fence next to the house, and the small garden under the hotwater service.

The photo shows the wires in the pot, with cable leaving via gray conduit for solenoid #9. Red conduit goes nowhere.

#6 solenoid is the one just in front of the East side gate. It only waters the strip garden in front of the den/office.

#7 solenoid halfway along the front East side fence. Waters East side fence garden, front fence garden, and both sides of entrance path to lawn entry. Feed for these drippers is from a sprinkler riser halfway along front fence. I have added a further feed from a sprinkler riser next to East side fence.

watering_8_valve+main_gatevalve_detail.jpg

#8 solenoid is close to main supply tap which is close to the mains water meter and shutoff valve. It used to feed pop-up sprinklers in the nature strip. Most of these are damaged.

#9 solenoid is at the East rear corner of the swimming pool room. It appears to be fed from a dedicated copper mains water pipe. It has its own isolating gate valve.

The wiring for the solenoid starts off as red and white at the controller, goes underground near the East side fence to #5 solenoid box (see picture above) where it is joined to lighting flex carried in electrical conduit along the East fence to a position near the North corner of the swimming pool room where it goes West (as shown here) to the edge of the inner edge of the garden bed.

The wiring then goes South as shown here deviating around a plot for a persimon tree. There is also a sprinkler in the photo, supplied by the #9 solenoid.

The solenoid also supplies water to sprinklers along the rear wall of the swimming pool room and to two other sprinklers in the rear East garden.

Water Tanks

A Melro 2100 L round tank is located in the front yard behind the carport. It sits on a foundation of bricks covered in ~50 mm of dirt/concrete. Downpipes and drainpipes channel the rainwater from the 36 m² roof of the carport to the tank bought from Bunnings for $479.00. The tank is 1250 mm diameter and 1850 mm high, just low enough to be below the level of the drainpipes.

A Melro 2000 L slimline tank has been set up behind the pool room outside the workshop. It will eventually receive water from the pool room roof and from a stormwater sump next to it. The foundation is reinforced cement over bricks.

The plan is to locate a further 2000 L slimline tank behind the pool room at the eastern end. The foundation is reinforced concrete over dirt/gravel.

Wiring

Halfway along the east side fence, at the base of the rock retaining wall, there is a junction for wiring to #7 solenoid and to #8 solenoid. There was also a riser for a sprinkler there, but the black plastic pipe had pulled off the 'T'-piece and was leaking. The riser and 'T'-piece have been replaced with two 45° connectors and a threaded joiner.

LINKS