The task of repairing an irrigation system that someone else installed has fallen on me. I have zero experience with this. I've studied the system for a couple of days, and I've been able to make some sense of it. Feeling more confident than I had any right to, I began the first phase of the re-jiggering with the "Patio Zone" this week.
The irrigation system is built with Rain Bird components:
- There are two 8-port manifolds connected to underground PVC connected to the water supply.
- 1/4" black plastic tubing carries water from the manifold to small, plastic sprinklers mounted on plastic stakes in the planters.
- There are various small plastic tees and junctions in the network of tubing.
The planters have been moved, and the number of planters has been reduced, and so there is an excess of tubing and other components. As I began removal of some of the tubing, the first thing I discovered is that it was virtually impossible to remove the 1/4" tubing from any fitting. I spent 20 minutes trying to remove a single tube from a port on one of the manifolds; my twisting, prying and pulling finally broke off the flimsy plastic port from the manifold body!
The system was installed about 8 years ago, and I figured the tubing had become brittle. However, I soon discovered that the new tubing and fittings were no more easily removed than the old ones! I've spent the past couple of hours searching the Rain Bird website, and the Internet at large for THE TRICK to remove 1/4" hose from the plastic fittings. Oddly (it seems to me), there seems to be no mention of my difficulties at all.
This leads me to wonder if it's never mentioned because:
It's SO obvious, nobody (except me) needs to ask the question, or
These is no solution - you simply buy new parts & throw the old in the rubbish.
So this is my question: Is there a reasonably efficient method for removing 1/4" irrigation tubing from the plastic fittings and appliances used with it? How do people deal with this?