Life extending, pop-up sprinkler insert

Abstract

A life extending, pop-up sprinkler comprising a riser pipe, a collar, a pop-up shaft with a threaded head, an O-ring, a weight, and a spray insert. The riser pipe is threaded at both ends. The lower threads are designed to mate with the specially threaded cavity in the sprinkler head body. Threaded onto the upper threads is the collar, which has a opening, having a hexagonal (or other shaped) cross-section, in its upper web. Sliding inside this opening is the cylindrical pop-up shaft which has a mating, outer, hexagonal (or other matching shaped) cross-section. The O-ring is slipped over the lower end of the shaft and a cylindrical (or other shaped) weight is screwed onto the lower end of the shaft. Both the O-ring and the weight are of larger diameters than the shaft so as to preclude leakage. The upper end of the shaft terminates in a cylindrical pop-up head which is also larger in diameter than the shaft. The upper end of the head is threaded to receive the spray insert, which is preferably identical to a standard spray insert. In typical fashion the insert has a small, upwards slanting exit hole or slot. In an alternate embodiment, an adapter to replace a sprinkler head is provided by utilizing the collar, the pop-up shaft with threaded head, the O-ring, the weight, and the spray insert described above. The collar is screwed directly onto the in-ground riser. The pop-up is assembled through the hole in the collar and the spray insert screwed into the pop-up head before the collar is screwed onto the in-ground riser.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.