Posted: 5/11/2013 6:41:12 AM EDT
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We bought a house a few months ago and the back yard needs to be landscaped. The sprinkler system was started when the house was build but it wasn't finished. The Front yard is working and split into zones with a 10 zone controller. We have 3 or 4 spots left on the manifold to expand to the system to include the backyard. We have water that is fed from the HOA irrigation system and a pump installed to power the system. Based on the pressure we get form the HOA and the addition of the pump we will have plenty of pressure.
I sketched out my yard using the Orbit sprinklers website and have come up with a few options. The orbit site sets up the sprinklers completely different when I change my static pressure. I can see it splitting up the zones when I drop the static pressure but why does it change the design and the heads used? How exact does it need to be. I won't go over the total pressure with my zones but can I play around with the sprinkler types? |
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Done right, you must calculate pressure loss throughout the whole system (including elevation, friction loss through pipe and each fitting). You use pressure and flow to create the optimal layout. Irrigation heads and emitters all have different flow (gpm) and spacing.
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| The reason it changes is because each head will have a nozzle. Example: a no. 1 nozzle uses 1 gal. per min. Your system may have a 16 gpm maximum. So, if you have 5 heads with no. 2 nozzles and 5 with 1.5 nozzles that would be a total of 17.5 gallons per minute.Not enough gpm to get the coverage you lawn needs. So you would need to split that up into two different zones. |
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Quoted:
Flow is more important than pressure when it comes to irrigation. Each zone on an irrigation system is based on gallons per minute. Not sure but you will probably need at least two zones in your back yard. Here are the two layouts from orbit. I like the first one and will most likely go with it but it seems like there are a lot of heads in the upper left corner of the yard. |
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Find out your gallons per minute first. Get a 5 gallon bucket turn on your water source and time how long it takes to fill.
That will give you a close enough idea of your GPM. Stay away from orbit sprinklers if you can. Sprinkler in the middle of the yard is necessary. As most sprinklers require head to head coverage. Look at using MP3000 sprinkler head made by Hunter industries I believe lowes or Home Depot will carry them. |
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Quoted:
Find out your gallons per minute first. Get a 5 gallon bucket turn on your water source and time how long it takes to fill. That will give you a close enough idea of your GPM. Stay away from orbit sprinklers if you can. Sprinkler in the middle of the yard is necessary. As most sprinklers require head to head coverage. Look at using MP3000 sprinkler head made by Hunter industries I believe lowes or Home Depot will carry them. Layout 1 completely avoids the head in the middle. I'm going to use rainbird or hunter for my heads. I just used orbit because they have a web based design app. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Find out your gallons per minute first. Get a 5 gallon bucket turn on your water source and time how long it takes to fill. That will give you a close enough idea of your GPM. Stay away from orbit sprinklers if you can. Sprinkler in the middle of the yard is necessary. As most sprinklers require head to head coverage. Look at using MP3000 sprinkler head made by Hunter industries I believe lowes or Home Depot will carry them. Layout 1 completely avoids the head in the middle. I'm going to use rainbird or hunter for my heads. I just used orbit because they have a web based design app. Using MP rotators will change both designs. hunter may have a design program on their web site. Also consider going to a professional landscaping supplier such as John Deer or Ewing or whatever Wholesale supply house may be in your area. although they advertise as wholesale only they will not turn down a sale. Most of these companies will provide free designs. |
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Quoted:
I sketched out my yard using the Orbit sprinklers website and have come up with a few options. The orbit site sets up the sprinklers completely different when I change my static pressure. I can see it splitting up the zones when I drop the static pressure but why does it change the design and the heads used? How exact does it need to be. I won't go over the total pressure with my zones but can I play around with the sprinkler types? I am not sure why it changed the design unless they are assuming a change in GPM also, and possibly using different sprinkler heads. the fact that they didn't ask for GPM tells me they are assuming a certain GPM. It is a flawed design program IMO. You need to know how much water you have available. EDIT If the program asked for pipe size at the point of connection it may assume you are getting maximum flow. Such as 1" pipe will give you about 18GPM without too much pressure and velocity loss. Either design will work and since you already have extra valves installed I would use the 2 zone drawing. Could be that over time your neighborhood might grow leaving you with less water available. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I sketched out my yard using the Orbit sprinklers website and have come up with a few options. The orbit site sets up the sprinklers completely different when I change my static pressure. I can see it splitting up the zones when I drop the static pressure but why does it change the design and the heads used? How exact does it need to be. I won't go over the total pressure with my zones but can I play around with the sprinkler types? I am not sure why it changed the design unless they are assuming a change in GPM also, and possibly using different sprinkler heads. the fact that they didn't ask for GPM tells me they are assuming a certain GPM. It is a flawed design program IMO. You need to know how much water you have available. EDIT If the program asked for pipe size at the point of connection it may assume you are getting maximum flow. Such as 1" pipe will give you about 18GPM without too much pressure and velocity loss. Either design will work and since you already have extra valves installed I would use the 2 zone drawing. Could be that over time your neighborhood might grow leaving you with less water available. The program did ask for our line size for the incoming water line. Our feed is 1'' to our pump. We have a 1hp pump that connects to the manifold. I'm going to figure out the GPM and PSI on the system this afternoon. |