A small update from a few days ago. To save you a click, it turns out that if you apply PVC cement and don’t push the pipes together you won’t actually make a good joint. Who knew.
I’m honestly impressed it lasted so long without issues. We’ve lived in this house over 10 years and the PVC run predates our purchase.
As a side note, PVC repair couplers are a massive PITA. I am glad I didn’t have to dig a fresh trench, get the old pipe out, and put a new one in, but it was quite the dance getting the coupler on while fighting with 2" OD pipe that’s firmly lodged in clay. My nice small hole grew a bit longer to get some wiggle room.
My dad is having to deal with something similar in his garden. He had to remove two bushes just to get to the sprinkler pipes that broke. He’s been digging for days.
That stinks. I was able to find this within about 6" on the first dig. It’s about 10 feel from the outlet, so I could use the snake as a depth gauge.
Hope your dad is able to get to the bottom of it soon!
He’ll probably have it fixed soon enough.