Howdy,
I am on the board of a small condo HOA, and we have a wierd problem. We have a irrigation control valve box in the front of our property that is targeted by thieves for the the brass regulators underneath. Our city runs rampant with copper theft, but this is the first time I have heard of brass as a commodity for an easy buck.
We're not able to move the box to a more secure location as a city ordinaces places it within a certain amount of feet from the city water connection.
The thieves break into the city manhole first to cut our water, then pop the lid of our valve box, and just rip the regulator right out leaving us a flooded hole and broken pvc connections.
It's always a few hundred dollars to fix, and sadly it knocks the water out to half the community as we have to shut the water off, or it just floods.
Does anyone have a suggestion on securing a valve box? I have found a few "locking" Valve boxes but none are key locked, and use some sort of bolt that can be opened easily it seems.
We're considering everything from placing a large rock over the cover, to trying to chain the regulator to a deeply driven spike, but thought we'd ask around before we do anything.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Rob
I am on the board of a small condo HOA, and we have a wierd problem. We have a irrigation control valve box in the front of our property that is targeted by thieves for the the brass regulators underneath. Our city runs rampant with copper theft, but this is the first time I have heard of brass as a commodity for an easy buck.
We're not able to move the box to a more secure location as a city ordinaces places it within a certain amount of feet from the city water connection.
The thieves break into the city manhole first to cut our water, then pop the lid of our valve box, and just rip the regulator right out leaving us a flooded hole and broken pvc connections.
It's always a few hundred dollars to fix, and sadly it knocks the water out to half the community as we have to shut the water off, or it just floods.
Does anyone have a suggestion on securing a valve box? I have found a few "locking" Valve boxes but none are key locked, and use some sort of bolt that can be opened easily it seems.
We're considering everything from placing a large rock over the cover, to trying to chain the regulator to a deeply driven spike, but thought we'd ask around before we do anything.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Rob