sand in water pipes

[Jim Jones]

I had a sprinkler system problem that required several repairs and in that process I seem to have gotten a lot of debris in the pipes inside my home. In fact, the final repair was made (by me) and when I turned on the water at the street, there was no pressure at all! I fooled with this and that then when I was in the garage, I heard sound from the pipes I never heard before. The main cutoff for the house is there behind the water heater so I closed the valve all the way, then reopened it and in that process I must have knocked the plug loose because I now had pressure albeit weak. Since them, I've had to flush out all the toilet fill valves. I've taken off the aerators of most faucets to clean out the screens. But I still have pressure problems. The main one now (or next on the list) is the washing machine. When the rinse is set to cold, it would probably take a 30 minutes to fill the tub. I've put it on warm so we can at least do laundry. How would I go about flushing the clog in a washing machine, and does anyone have any suggestions about how to flush out the whole system?

[ransley]

My washer hose came with a screen filter that was clogged and slow for years until I found out, remove both hose fittings maybe you will be lucky and find a clogged screen filter. To avoid future issues whole house filters at the incomming main are very cheap, mine has a clear housing to see any buildup.

[Jim Jones]

To avoid future issues whole house filters at the incomming main are very cheap, mine has a clear housing to see any buildup.

I need to do something, yes. When I put my sprinkler system in 20 years ago (myself) I dug down to the footing where the water line enters the crawl space (it's a blue plastic line about 1/2") cut the line and installed a compression T where the T went to my sprinkler system. After 20 years the plastic pipes broke, then when I fixed them the blue plastic started coming loose from that compression T so I had to fix this 3 times before it was really "fixed". So in the times when the system was broken there were several hours of time that the water was flowing out through the dirt before the leak was detected. I was very surprised at how much dirt can get into the system.

[Eric in North TX]

To begin with; you should have a double check valve on lawn sprinklers to avoid contaminating the house water, most places require this. If you use chemicals on your lawn, you probably have some of that too. since the main shut off helped, try that again, & open the nearest faucet and let it run for like an hour.

[Jim Jones]

To begin with; you should have a double check valve on lawn sprinklers to avoid contaminating the house water, most places require this. If you use chemicals on your lawn, you probably have some of that too. since the main shut off helped, try that again, & open the nearest faucet and let it run for like an hour.

My sprinkler valves are anti-siphon. I thought that was all that was necessary.