Hey everyone,

Sorry if this topic has been discussed ad nausea here but I am at a
loss. I have a 10 Zone sprinkler system in that I am trying to blow
out myself to save some money. I have a setup that looks similar to
this:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/febco.jpg

but without "C." I swore last year when I paid to have the system
blown out, they hooked their compressor up to A. When I do this, all
the air just comes out the top of the backflow preventer. I have the
bottom blue valve closed along with the main shutoff line. I have the
top left blue valve open. I also have all the sprinkler valves closed
in hopes to build up about 40PSI in the supply line and then stand at
the controller and cycle each valve. I am unable to get any pressure
when hooking the compressor to A or B. What am I doing wrong?

TIA,

Derek

genius wrote:
Hey everyone,

Sorry if this topic has been discussed ad nausea here but I am at a
loss. I have a 10 Zone sprinkler system in that I am trying to blow
out myself to save some money. I have a setup that looks similar to
this:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/febco.jpg

but without "C." I swore last year when I paid to have the system
blown out, they hooked their compressor up to A. When I do this, all
the air just comes out the top of the backflow preventer. I have the
bottom blue valve closed along with the main shutoff line. I have the
top left blue valve open. I also have all the sprinkler valves closed
in hopes to build up about 40PSI in the supply line and then stand at
the controller and cycle each valve. I am unable to get any pressure
when hooking the compressor to A or B. What am I doing wrong?

Hi,
How much do they charge? Here it is 55.00 per visit. But I do myself
with my shop compressor. I shut off water, hook up compressor at 60 psi,
manually cycle all the zones to purge water. I have only 7 zones, Takes
about 15 mins. tops.

On Oct 13, 2:35 pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
genius wrote:
Hey everyone,

Sorry if this topic has been discussed ad nausea here but I am at a
loss. I have a 10 Zone sprinkler system in that I am trying to blow
out myself to save some money. I have a setup that looks similar to
this:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/febco.jpg

but without "C." I swore last year when I paid to have the system
blown out, they hooked their compressor up to A. When I do this, all
the air just comes out the top of the backflow preventer. I have the
bottom blue valve closed along with the main shutoff line. I have the
top left blue valve open. I also have all the sprinkler valves closed
in hopes to build up about 40PSI in the supply line and then stand at
the controller and cycle each valve. I am unable to get any pressure
when hooking the compressor to A or B. What am I doing wrong?

Hi,
How much do they charge? Here it is 55.00 per visit. But I do myself
with my shop compressor. I shut off water, hook up compressor at 60 psi,
manually cycle all the zones to purge water. I have only 7 zones, Takes
about 15 mins. tops.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You should have hose bib or similiar after the left valve, so you can
connect the air compressor to that bypassing the breaker valve.
If air comes out of the breaker valve,try closing the left valve a
little while you are blowing air. That will build up enough presuure
for the diaphragm in the breaker valve to close, then open the left
valve again.

On Oct 13, 1:22 pm, Mikepier wrote:
On Oct 13, 2:35 pm, Tony Hwang wrote:





genius wrote:
Hey everyone,

Sorry if this topic has been discussed ad nausea here but I am at a
loss. I have a 10 Zone sprinkler system in that I am trying to blow
out myself to save some money. I have a setup that looks similar to
this:

http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/febco.jpg

but without "C." I swore last year when I paid to have the system
blown out, they hooked their compressor up to A. When I do this, all
the air just comes out the top of the backflow preventer. I have the
bottom blue valve closed along with the main shutoff line. I have the
top left blue valve open. I also have all the sprinkler valves closed
in hopes to build up about 40PSI in the supply line and then stand at
the controller and cycle each valve. I am unable to get any pressure
when hooking the compressor to A or B. What am I doing wrong?

Hi,
How much do they charge? Here it is 55.00 per visit. But I do myself
with my shop compressor. I shut off water, hook up compressor at 60 psi,
manually cycle all the zones to purge water. I have only 7 zones, Takes
about 15 mins. tops.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You should have hose bib or similiar after the left valve, so you can
connect the air compressor to that bypassing the breaker valve.
If air comes out of the breaker valve,try closing the left valve a
little while you are blowing air. That will build up enough presuure
for the diaphragm in the breaker valve to close, then open the left
valve again.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Thanks for the help. I had to crank up the compressor pressure a bit
and then close both blue valves. I then put air in the A valve at max
opening. Once the pressure built up (~65 PSI), the backflow preventer
closed and all was good. I do see the real value in a high end air
compressor but mine did the job. I could only do one zone and then
had to wait 10-15 mins for the compressor to build up again but this
saved me $75 and took about 2 hours. I am sure next year will go
faster.

Thanks again for all you help...