Old Control System - The Valves

This potentially disorienting photo is what one would have seen when standing on the red patio, more or less in line with the trunk of the redwood tree, and looking downward while facing southwest.

Valve Land

The existing system had four electrically-controlled valves running separate water circuits:

the east lawn	the center lawn	the west lawn	the redwood zone

(Be New millennium Hyper and follow the links above for details of the removal of each of these circuits, or be Old millennium Linear and keep clicking Next.)

In addition to the four sprinkler circuits, there was an “exciting” line passing straight through the valve manifold from the water source, to feed the hose bibs under the redwood tree and at the southeast (back) corner of the garage. Its exit from the manifold can be seen in the photo above as the middle of the three white plastic pipe repair fittings (the topmost being the one in mid-air).

What made the hose bib feed “exciting” was the random kludgy repeated switching from galvanized to plastic, back to galvanized, back to plastic, etc., plus the circuitous route this hodgepodge took from the manifold to the first hose bib.

In fact, there were unexplained switches from galvanized to plastic all around the valve manifold. This, the age of the manifold pipes, and the need for more than four valves led to the easy conclusion that the entire manifold would need to be removed - everything back to the 3/4" main feed from the house.

To make a long story short, everything you see in the photo above was removed. Only the valves were re-used.

Next…