Warning: That rusty sprinkler valve I ignored popped off at 6am yesterday flooding half my yard in Houston

Water was gushing for 20 minutes before I found the shutoff valve buried under some ivy, now I'm digging up the whole zone to replace the manifold instead of just that one part, has anyone dealt with a pvc pipe that keeps splitting after a freeze?

4 comments

4 Comments

sandra_moore301mo ago

Bet you that pvc was already weakened from some old damage before the freeze hit, and then the ice just finished it off. When you dig up that manifold, go ahead and replace all the joints in that zone with schedule 80 fittings, those handle the cold way better around here and you won't have to guess which one cracks next winter.

wesley6391mo ago

That 20 minute gusher hit close to home, I once had a similar blowout at my place and spent a solid 45 minutes running around like a headless chicken before I found my shutoff behind a rogue azalea bush (gardening, am I right?). For the splitting after a freeze problem, yeah schedule 80 is the way to go, I learned that after the third time I replaced the same damn joint with standard pvc and it just split again like clockwork the next winter. On the bright side, at least the ivy kept your shutoff from growing legs and walking off, mine just hid it like a buried treasure I didn't want to find.

theacooper1mo ago

Dig up the whole thing and swap in schedule 80 like Sandra said, it's the only fix that actually sticks.

mitchell.thomas5d ago

Man, tell me about it! I went through the exact same loop about three winters ago. First year a joint cracked, I patched it with standard PVC thinking it was a fluke. Next year a different part of the manifold split open. Finally I got fed up and dug the whole thing out, swapped every single fitting on that zone to schedule 80. Hasn't given me a single problem since and that was four hard freezes ago. The extra cost is totally worth it for the peace of mind because chasing a leak under the dirt in February is the worst. Plus the schedule 80 stuff is thicker so it handles the ground shifting way better than the thin wall stuff.