A Dwyer

How To Shut Down Community Water in the Fall

Depending on temperatures and rainfall, shut down the community irrigation in sometime between late September and mid October. Do it before the first freeze.

Sprinkler Control Boxes

Turn the dial on the sprinkler control boxes to ‘off’. There are three.

  1. The common house lawn control box, located in the office storage room of the common house. Controls stations north and east of the common house.
  2. The west side water, located in the office storage room of the common house. Controls stations west and south of the common house, including the back lawn; the west berm including west of unit #1, the lawn south of unit 14, the wooded arc north of #8.
  3. 3. The east side water, located in the garage. Controls the east berm, east side of the carports.

Stop-and-Waste Valves

Turn off most of the stop-and-waste valves using the valve key. This is a metal tool consisting of a tube about 5’ long with a small U at one end and a 1’ T at the other. It is stored in the garage. Take off the cap of the tube leading to the underground valve. Put the U end of the key down the tube and seat it on the shut-off. Turn the shut-off 90 degrees. You will hear a brief gush of water. Make sure it is firmly closed; otherwise water continues to flow out into the ground. Pull out the key and put the cap back on the tube. Return the key to the garage. There are four (five?) stop-and-waste valves to be turned off.
  1. On the east berm across from the east-most hydrant in the garden. This valve controls the hose bib on the east berm near the carports. Note that there are two stop-and-waste valves on the east berm; turn off the west one and leave the east one turned on.
  2. In the garden, near the east-most hydrant. This controls the other three hose bibs in the garden.
  3. East of unit 25. This controls the station that waters the three trees east of unit 25.
  4. In the common house lawn, northwest of the sitting room. You will need to shine a flashlight down the pipe in order to see where the shut off is and place the key across it.
  5. In the north field???

Do not turn off the valve on the east berm near the driveway drain. This valve feeds water to all the other vqalves and on east side, plus to several frost-proof hydrants (self-draining) which do not need to be drained for the winter because they drain every time they are turned off. There are also several privately owned stop-and-waste valves, e.g., #11, #16, Mary’s field. The respective unit owners Mary and Kay are responsible to turn these valves off.

written by Kay, October 2017, formatting 4/24/2020