Skool me on home sprinkler systems

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haystax

haystax

Joined
Mar 9, 2004
Threads
73
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1,264
Location
Diamond Valley, Nevada
Need to get started on landscaping around the house and want to install a sprinkler and drip system. Any tips or components to recommend or shy away from?

Fairly small lawn area ~1500 sf with ~80 lf of flowerbed/planters and couple of evergreens in back yard. Mostly xeroscape/hardscape in front with a couple flowerbeds planned. Thinking 4-6 zones would do it for the yard and the windbreaks will be on a yard hydrant without a controller - just tubing and emmiters.

Need to run ~450 feet of tubing for windbreak shrubs and trees. I have two yard hydrants installed so total tubing runs are around 150' Is 1/2" big enough for this? Water source is private well with a 30gpm 1.5hp submersible so water availability is no issue. More gpm is actually better in this instance to keep the pump from short cyclling.

Thanks! :beer:
 
I just had a system installed, finished yesterday. Small system, 13 heads, 3 zones. Everything outside is 1" black plastic. They used a Ditch Witch puller to install the pipe. All the components are Hunter, including the Pro-C programmable controller. WAAAY better stuff than that Rain Bird crap they sell at Homey Depot.

Ran for it's first time this morning, 15 min/zone, starting at 0400. I sure hope it helps my crappy lawn.
 
I have two lawns under sprinkler both about 6000 sq ft, I only run two zones each. I paid a guy to install them because the price wasn't much more than me doing it with better quality components.
 
Some of the local wholesale/(primary) suppliers will provide good .02 and design services free of charge.

My .02, go with Hunter/Irritrol/Rainbird(commercial) products.
 
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1" is my choice for the mains then for the laterals they can be reduced down to 1/2" pvc or black flex tubing 700 -710 size and the quick connect fittings.
From there you can poke holes for side feeds that only require a dripper with 1/4" tubing. The evergreens will require more water than a mesquite or desert willow would so take into account water requirements for those.
Each lateral off of the main could be a separate zone, so it depends on the layout. you may end up running 3/4 instead of 1" and putting more in the trench for different zones.
The lawn might be better with a loop system so water can be feed from a different feed point if something breaks and it will ensure even water distribution.

haystax said:
Need to get started on landscaping around the house and want to install a sprinkler and drip system. Any tips or components to recommend or shy away from?

Fairly small lawn area ~1500 sf with ~80 lf of flowerbed/planters and couple of evergreens in back yard. Mostly xeroscape/hardscape in front with a couple flowerbeds planned. Thinking 4-6 zones would do it for the yard and the windbreaks will be on a yard hydrant without a controller - just tubing and emmiters.

Need to run ~450 feet of tubing for windbreak shrubs and trees. I have two yard hydrants installed so total tubing runs are around 150' Is 1/2" big enough for this? Water source is private well with a 30gpm 1.5hp submersible so water availability is no issue. More gpm is actually better in this instance to keep the pump from short cyclling.

Thanks! :beer:
Click to expand...
 
I have a 36 station system and around 10,000 of irrigation in the ground around my 7 acres.

Design the entire system on paper first.

You are starting off correctly by using your GPM. Next step is to decide how many Zones you are going to have. You may have more than you think once you calculate the coverage area of the head based on the PSI and GPM tip. Allow for windage and overlap of your heads.

Our main is a 2" and we put isolation valves in so portions of the system can be shut off and the rest of the system can run as normal.

The first 100' from our main line is 1 1/2" and then 1". In doing this, we have the same coverage at both ends of the pastures. We are using the 25ADJ Rainbird impact heads. We calculated this diameter pipe based on the coverage of the 25ADJ head using the 3/16" tip at 45PSI and figured in windage. Same principle as you will with the pop ups.

Home Depot and Lowes sells crap. If you want to do it again or continue to work on your system, by the home Toro system, Lawn Gene, Nibco. (It is all crap.)
 
Thanks for all the replies -

We have started with scale drawings of the areas we want to irrigate and will be getting materials from a plumbing supply house, not the Homo Depot. I'm sure they have some design staff as well but thanks for the ideas on components. Is one style head better than another? We don't have a large area of pasture to water with this system, mainly small lawn and beds close to the house.

The main concern with heads is to make sure that the water can't spray our house and that emitters are large enough not to clog with our hard water deposits and starve a tree or shrub.

Thanks for the help, should be able to get to town and get some quotes by the end of the week and I'll probably have more ?? then.

:beer:
 
If you have hard water, the dripper tips will plug over time. Inline filters help but they still get plugged.

Most all rotary heads are adjustable from side to side. Hitting your house and not the yard means you have to pull the head and rotate it and then fine tune adjust it.

An array of tips generally come with the heads. The tip selection ranges from Hi arch to Low Arch and a rain curtain type spray. The effectiveness of the head is determined by the GPM at a determined PSI.
 
I also recommend the Hunter stuff- excellent fit and adjustment qualities. I did a lot of landscaping in a past life and nothing held up like the Hunter equipment. If i recall correctly we used irritrol controllers which were weather-proof, easy to use and very reliable. Some are even solar powered.

David
 
My side.

I spent about 150 dollars for a crappy contoller and two zones from HD. Everything is drip or misters. The drippers are still going to this day and work well as long as a the squirrels don't see them. If they do the gloves come off and they chew holes everywhere it sticks out of the ground. Best yet are the misters and such. Nothing beats hitting those things with the weedeater and watching that 25 cents vaporizing. Then when the zone comes on in the morning you can look out the window and see all the small fountains shooting out of the ground. Awesome!

Just plan on spending about 25 dollars buying those little heads and such every 3-4 years or so. Funny thing I just did that today. If I can reccomend anything is let a professional do the yard sprinklers and then just have them put the zone controls for the drip crap. Then you can install the rest. Because you will be doing it and fixing it every year anyway might as well go ahead and get the learning curve over.
 
Make sure you put a backflow preventer at the beginning of the system. It keeps your well from being contaminated. My well water has high iron and magnesium. I pulled all the spray head filters because they where constantly plugging up. For my trees, I use bubblers, they fill the tree wells in about ten minutes and dont plug up. Shrubs, I use misters. Also, the spray heads for the lawn are against the house or flower bed pointing away from the house. This keeps my house from turning orange.
 
I have heard fall is a good time to put down sod. Fall is in the air.
We had one month of summer, weird year.
 
Yeah it feels like fall. Opened the windows in the house last night and it was 56* inside this morning - wife was not happy about that.

Need to plant a bunch more shrubs too, only about 75% of them made it this spring. My garden needs a few more weeks before a freeze, Labor Day is usually about the first real hard frost.
 
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