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I live in a standalone condo. As you can see in the image, one of my hose bibs shares a water feed with the irrigation system. I am, as yet, somewhat unclear as to who is responsible for what here. When I opened the gate valve in my basement that feeds this, I was rewarded with a miniature ornamental fountain in the form of jets of water from the four nipples that point up. What are they for? Why is there one to the left of the first gate valve, when the hose bib is available to drain water from that area? What is someone supposed to do to set all this up for use: close the valves in the nipples with a screwdriver? Install metal caps?

irrigation valves

bmargulies
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1 Answers1

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That thing in the middle is a backflow preventer. You are required to have one when hooking up an irrigation system to the same line that feeds the house. This is so that there is no backflow to the house with contaminated water coming from the garden carrying fertilizer, pesticide, etc.

The things pointing up are called test cocks, and are used to test that the backflow preventer is working well. The slots are for using a screwdriver to open/close a ball valve that's inside. You turn them on/off by turning the slots 1/4 turn in either direction.

It's possible that the test cocks were left open during the winter to avoid water left inside of the backflow preventer from expanding during freeze/thaw cycles and destroying the BFP. It's a $300 part, so it's worth protecting. If it's not freezing anymore where you are, you can close the test cocks.

Cheery
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