Last week when I was mowing my lawn I noticed water coming out of one my valve boxes in the back yard. After a bit of troubleshooting I found that the manifold had a crack in a threaded coupling. The manifold had was built with PVC fittings and had no unions so that meant I would have to dig up and cut out the whole manifold. I could have used PVC pipe and fittings to rebuild a new manifold for under $10 but I would have the same problem in the future if a sprinkler valve went bad. I would end up digging up the manifold again or paying a sprinkler contractor hundreds of dollars to do it for me.
The manifold system I used to replace my sprinkler manifold was Action Machine. I’ve been using Action Machine sprinkler manifolds for a few years now since Rain Bird discontinued their 100DVFUU union valves. Action manifolds and fittings are high quality and easy to assemble. All fittings used in the Action manifolds have o-rings so there is no need to use teflon tape or paste. For my project the two port manifold and fittings cost under $35 and if I ever need to replace a faulty sprinkler valve all I have to do is loosen a couple of buttress nuts and the whole valve can be removed and replaced.
I don’t give a lot of things I buy and use five stars but the Action Machine manifold system is one of them. My MacBook Pro would be another. I’ve done an in-depth video on Replacing A Lawn Sprinkler Manifold using a Action Machine manifold and fittings. Video covers:
- Troubleshooting a manifold leak.
- Assembling an Action Machine manifold.
- Action manifold parts description.
- How to glue PVC pipe & fittings.
- Pros and cons of a PVC manifold versus an Action Machine manifold.
- Sprinkler valve wiring.
- Annotation of PVC parts used in video.
- How to manually open and close a sprinkler valve.
If you’re a homeowner or a sprinkler contractor and run into the need to replace a sprinkler manifold, I highly recommend Action Machine manifolds and fittings.
Thank you!
I am in the process of replacing my sprinkler manifold. I watched your videos and was going to use the action manifold, but quickly ran into an issue. My main supply line is 1” copper that feeds a 1 1/4” poly. The current manifold is constructed with 1 1/4” poly which feeds the 1” valves followed by 1” poly feding the sprinklers. The action manifold is 1” schedule 80 which has a smaller ID than the schedule 40. The current flow rate is around 15gpm. My concern is whether the action manifold is going to either restrict the flow (gpm) or increase the velocity to much higher number which might damage the valves/downstream connections.
As far as the flow requirements for you system, your sprinkler valves are 1″ so the Action manifold will work. Action also makes insert fittings for poly pipe. Here’s a link that might help: Action Machine.
Schedule 80 fittings have the same ID as Schedule 40 fittings. You can glue Schedule 40 pipe into a Schedule 80 fitting.