Ticking Noise

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mike bank

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I'll try and keep this short but provide enough information.
City water irrigation system, 60 psi. Had water hammer on valves opening and closing.
I installed a PRV on the irrigation line that splits from the main. The main is in the basement, the PRV is outside after the pressure vacuum breaker. The PRV is set at 30psi. It stopped hammer on all the zones when the valves close.
In the front yard I have Hunter popup heads and installed check valves to stop leakage when the zone valve closes, trying to keep air out of the system. That has significantly reduce the opening hammer to a small pop from a cannon going off.
The backyard has Rainbird heads (installed post home build by a different company). The open hammer still exist so I need to replace the heads, Rainbird doesn't have an easy retrofit like Hunter.
Regardless of front or back or zone, when the water is running I hear a ticking sound somewhere in the wall near the main. It doesn't appear to be coming from either the house PRV or the irrigation PRV. The controller is putting out 29 volts constantly.
I checked once and the house pressure drops from 60psi to 40psi when the system is running. The flow rate into the house is 9 gpm, the zones appear to use about 5-6 gpm. The system runs in the middle of the night.
The house is 5 years old, new neighborhood.
Any thoughts on the ticking noise? Should the irrigation PRV be upstream of the vacuum breaker or does it matter?
Thanks for reading this long post, looking for any thoughts.
 

WorthFlorida

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Number one problem when water "hammer" is suspected, everyone's definition of what is a water hammer are not the same. Since you wrote that it sounds like a cannon I believe it must be quite unusual. Does the hammer sound migrate inside the home? In general, if the irrigation system is able to drain while it is not running, such as sprinkler heads at lower elevations, when the water is turned on you are push out a lot of air and the water flow really accelerates without any back pressure until the water hits the last sprinkler, then bang. Many in ground irrigation systems you can hear a low thump when the the water is turned on or off, mainly at the zone valves.

I would place the PRV before the vacuum breaker. A PRV, though it is not a check valve, water flowing backwards is greatly restricted. I have no idea what the ticking sound could be. Where is the water meter? It is about the only thing that has a pin wheel of sorts to measure water use. In the house I grew up in I also could tell when dad turned on the sprinklers by clicking noise from the water meter in the basement. Not very loud but with copper pipe sound travels quit easily.

Is this the device you used at the low elevations sprinklers?
https://sprinklersupplystore.com/co...wspYpChIL4O_fNoxem5Na7U2sgRs_s7kaAgAIEALw_wcB
 

mike bank

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Hi WorthFlorida. The meter is at the street and is the new type with no moving parts https://www.badgermeter.com/products/encoders/hr-e-lcd/ so I don't believe it is the meter.
I used these check valves on the front sprayers, https://sprinklersupplystore.com/products/437400-pro-spray-check-valve. With the sprinklers off, when I lift up on the popup which releases the check valve water shoots out so they are working properly.
The hammer that I still have when the back sprinklers turn on is definitely in the house and seems to move around.
Where I think I am hearing the ticking involves opening up a wall, something I'm not yet interested in doing. First I need to replace the back spray bodies to one's with check valves.
 
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