Air Relief Valves. . .

So when they installed the irrigation system in the decided to put these air relief valves in. There purpose is to let out air when there is water in the system so you don't have it blowing out your hoses or sprinkler heads. The valves should remain open when the system is active and closed when you are blowing out the system. Well they were all closed for years according to the old system because they were leaking. So my boss wanted me to remove them take them apart and clean so here are pictures of one of the six that are on the course:

First I removed the top lid to reveal this:

Top of valve

As you can see there is a bladder, much like the one on a toilet. All if these valves are supposed to be located at the high spots of the golf course. Air rises above water so therefore the air would escape while the water would not. Well most of them were in low spots so therefore the water would push this bladder up thus sealing the valve, and defeating it's purpose.

Bottom of valve

So I decided to take the bladder device off and clean it off and spray it with WD-40. I also cleaned the seal where the top of the bladder makes a seal.

Shiny! Top of the bladder that makes water tight seal

Rubber seal

Cleaned bladder back on the top of the valve

Two of the valves I removed had cracked and broken bladders so we are going to replace those. Hopefully these bladders will work better now. Unfortunately, I don't think they ever had a chance to begin with.