Swing Joints

In response to the GolfGenie comment made yesterday, I will explain the purpose of the swing joint and provide some answers to the question.

It regarded sunken sprinkler heads on golf courses and how can that be prevented.

Well first let me explain how heads become lower than the original plane. One reason is that they were not installed correctly. As you will notice, when Landscapes installs each irrigation head, they spend a significant amount of time packing the soil to prevent any future settling. They use hand held packers or "jumping-jacks" (pictured here on a mainline install) to provide the most stable soil to house the sprinkler. Over time heads can settle if the soil cannot adequately keep the sprinkler in place.

The other reason, which you may find on courses with older irrigation systems, is due to the chronic sand topdressing applications made to the turf. Little by little each topdressing application raises the level of the playing surface, however the heads stays put. This certainly was common with many of our old heads, especially around the greens. The GolfGenie, probably noticed her sunken heads mostly around the greens since the putting surfaces receive the most amount of topdressing.

The only way to fix this is where the swing joint comes into play. Pictured above is Jesus with a swing joint and you can notice its flexibility. The swing joint is a combination of pivoting elbows of pvc that allows the sprinkler to withstand pressure from above. When sub-surface irrigation was first attempted on golf courses, they began to have problems with heavy equipment and golf carts driving over a sprinkler and damaging them. The swing joint eases the impact of traffic to a pressurized pipe and head from above. So, the swing joint was invented to provide the flexibility in the soil to keep the sprinkler from failing.

So the solution is to dig around and below the irrigation head and expose the swing joint. Depending on how low the head is, you can do one of two things. First, you can adjust the pivot points on the joint to raise it to the appropriate level. The downside of this, is that you may sacrifice some of the flexibility if the joint is maxed out. The second solution, would require a slightly bigger hole and a little more room in the budget. You can purchase a second swing joint to add to the one already in the ground and you will have no problem acquiring the appropriate level of the head. Neatly back fill and pack the soil and re-install the turf so that the entire area is level.

This can be a time consuming project and sometimes will be done over the course of a few seasons.