# not sure if it is sacrilege to even ask



## jackallis (Apr 15, 2019)

has anyone DIY irrigation installion that connect direclty into the foset outside of the house?
plannig to do install irrigation that connects to foset with timer. Doing my research in this forum and https://www.irrigationtutorials.com.
not sure if it is smart idea?


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## bernstem (Jan 16, 2018)

It will work. I have done it for seeding with above ground hoses and a cheap orbit timer when I didn't have an in ground system. You will be limited by the amount of flow you can get from your hose, and if you are going to bury the pipe in the lawn, that is the majority of the work, so at that point you should just install valves, backflow, and real timer.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

Host bibs only works with drip irrigation or perhaps a 1 to 3 sprinkler heads. Keep reading the tutorials and you'll get to the part about GPM requirements and pipe sizes required to run 8 or 10 heads. By the way, take care to install a vacuum breaker so yard water can't be sucked into your house water system.

If you're going to install a system someday, go ahead and tie into your water main and add a 1" ball valve with a hose connection in a ground box. It's like a poor man's pressure washer. It's really great for muddy equipment spray downs! You can also get great flow (and pressure) to a "temporary" irrigation setup. I did this trick years ago and watered my entire 10K SF back yard with just 3 Melnor oscillating sprinklers daisy-chained together. I'd run them 30 minutes on the back half, then slide them forward to the front half for 30 min. Whole back yard done in one hour.


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## zenmower (Jul 22, 2018)

My above ground system is connected to my bib.
-- 5 x spliter on bib supports multiple garden hoses, 5 valves, etc.

Each valve supports 1-2 heads depending on GPM requirements.
I have a B-hyve controller to run it.

My yard is 2500 sq ft.


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## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

I've done it an was able to set up two zones each running 4 hunter pgp's on each zone using 1.5 gpm nozzles and a regular timer on the hose bib. It worked for my reno of roughly 50x45 I used 3/4 inch poly and buried it about 10 to 12 inches deep.

This year I connected to my main and had to rework about 30 feet of trench out of a total of almost 200. I would say go for it and if you do it right you can switch to a full system later it beats dragging hoses.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

@Utk03analyst, how old is your house? Do you know if you copper or Pex in the walls? Do you know if it's 1/2" or 3/4"?

1.5 gpm x 4 heads = 6 gpm.... which is pretty impressive from a hose bib. I have great flow and pressure at the curb, but I have no idea what my hose bibs flow. I think I have 3/4" copper in my house. So just out of curiosity, I'll have to run a flow test with a 5 gallon bucket this afternoon. Maybe I can fill it in 60 seconds, but it always seems to take forever.


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## JasonRMorrow (Sep 11, 2018)

I'm about to do this, I'm in Canada so things may be a little different. My shipment should be arriving today. My home was built in 2018. Using a Melnor 4 zone controller, my faucet has an integrated vacuum breaker. My flow through the Melnor is 6gpm and static pressure is 65psi.

I have 1400sq ft in the back and 300sq ft in the front. Both are rectangular shape.

Back - 2x zones each with
3x MP 3000 rotators at 30psi (2x90* and 1x180*) requires 3.16gpm

Front - 1 zone
6x MP1000 rotator at 40psi (4x90* and 2x180*)
Requires 1.68gpm

I used the MP Rotator Spec Sheet to check flow rates and spray radius at 30 and 40 psi to build my system.

As soon as you install a back flow device here they must be tested yearly at around $150. My yard size and simple shape along with MP rotator flow rates made this possible. I'll be using 3/4" Blu-lock and prebuilt swing pipes. On paper I think I have all my bases covered.

Edit - Forgot to mention, I already had the timers, everything else cost me $554.


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## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

hsvtoolfool said:


> @Utk03analyst, how old is your house? Do you know if you copper or Pex in the walls? Do you know if it's 1/2" or 3/4"?
> 
> 1.5 gpm x 4 heads = 6 gpm.... which is pretty impressive from a hose bib. I have great flow and pressure at the curb, but I have no idea what my hose bibs flow. I think I have 3/4" copper in my house. So just out of curiosity, I'll have to run a flow test with a 5 gallon bucket this afternoon. Maybe I can fill it in 60 seconds, but it always seems to take forever.


I have pex, house is about 1.5 years old. I filled up a 5 gallon bucket in just under a minute. The pgp's only shot about 25 feet. Now from the main which is 1 inch pex I shoot about 38 feet from the pgp's rocking 3 gpm nozzles big difference but it worked.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

Utk03analyst said:


> I have pex, house is about 1.5 years old. I filled up a 5 gallon bucket in just under a minute.


Wow! That's great flow from a hose bib. I didn't run a flow test yesterday because I forgot and it was raining. I bet it take 2 to 3 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket from my hose bib. I'll try it this afternoon.


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## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

My only other tip is to test above ground before you trench fittings are around $0.50 to $1.00 a fitting make your lines a little longer than needed and test the labor is the largest investment/expense in irrigation. If the test fails it fails but you saved the effort of putting it in the ground to find out different.


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## NELawn (May 7, 2019)

I completed a DIY backyard irrigation project this year with very similar water pressure. From my hose bin I can fill a 5 gallon bucket in just under one minute and have about 55psi. The lawn Is about a 1,500sf rectangle with a cut out for a patio.

In the past I would bury rubber hose under mulch in the planting bed that goes around the yard. I would use three gardena sprinklers to water the lawn and a battery operated timer to run it. It worked OK, but it was a pain to remove the hose every winter and the water wasn't as even as I would have liked.

This year after a few trips to the local site one, they talked me into designing a system with Hunter Mp Rotators and using 1" poly pipe buried in the mulch bed. I wouldn't have attempted it had they not helped me design it. One zone has 3 mp rotator heads, while the other has 5 heads. The system was easy too setup, the digging in the planting bed a pain and had to go around some roots, but it wasn't too bad.

I had to tweak the heads a little as I had less water pressure than planned when the poly pipe was put into place, but the system works really well now. I get 1/2" even coverage on the whole yard all run off the hose bib and a battery operated hose end timer. One zone needs 1 1/2 hours to put out 1/2", the other does it an hour, very comparable to how long OI was running the rubber hoses and sprinklers.

The whole system cost about $120 then another $50 for the things I didn't think of and design changes we had to do when we encountered problem.

When you consider the hose and sprinklers cost about $100 anyway, this was a no brainer, when you consider I never have to take this out in winter and I get genuine even coverage I wish I had this when I seeded my lawn.

Running a system from a hose bib isn't the best solution, but considering i would be running the same amount of water with rubber hose and sprinklers, what difference does it make?


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## gatorguy (Mar 13, 2020)

JasonRMorrow said:


> I'm about to do this, I'm in Canada so things may be a little different. My shipment should be arriving today. My home was built in 2018. Using a Melnor 4 zone controller, my faucet has an integrated vacuum breaker. My flow through the Melnor is 6gpm and static pressure is 65psi.
> 
> I have 1400sq ft in the back and 300sq ft in the front. Both are rectangular shape.
> 
> ...


So I was thinking of doing something similar in my backyard which has a half inch copper line with 80psi at about 5.8 gpm I wa hoping to do 6 heads, 2 mp 3000 at 180 doing 20ft radius, and 3 mp3000 at 90 doing 28' ish radius and 1 mp 2000 at 90 doing like 13' if I remember right. I calculated it out and it would be super tight gpm wise for 1 zone. Thinking of winging it and seeing what happens.

Now I speced out the 180 degree ones with prs heads to 30psi as the chart says, but two guys from two different irrigstion supply stores says that despite the chart, they really need 45 psi to pop up...so let me know if yours works st 30.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

gatorguy said:


> So I was thinking of doing something similar in my backyard which has a half inch copper line with 80psi at about 5.8 gpm....


Irrigation valves open and close slowly to help alleviate water hammer. However, you must still carefully design the system to lower the potential energy of the pressure waves. In your example...

1/2" ID pipe + 80 PSI + 5.8 GPM (or 9.48 feet per second) results in about....

..*300 PSI* of potential water hammer pressure! This is too high pipe velocity for reliable long-term operation. It's best to limit PSI to about 60 PSI for residential systems (our heads don't need more!) and the water velocity in the mainline pipe should be below 5 feet per second. Larger pipe must be used to reduce the water's velocity...

Irrigation Tutorials on Mainlines

Convert GPM (flow) to FPS (velocity)

Estimate Water Hammer Pressure

Your home water pressure needs to be reduced to about 50 to 60 PSI. Ask a good plumber. Toilet valves, appliances, and even modern single-lever bath fixtures shut off water quickly and produce water hammer. The WH effect is really bad for your water heater, pipes, toilet vavles, and appliances. I check my home pressure every year at a hose bib. Pressure reducing valves go bad over time and must be replaced.


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## JasonRMorrow (Sep 11, 2018)

@gatorguy Got it mocked up above ground this morning. No issues with the 3x MP3000's popping up on the PRS30 body.
I also have a brass hose Y on the faucet, then the Melnor Timer. It worked fine with all that installed. The radius was big enough that I did have to turn it down. I have the advantage of slope away from the heads so that helped the radius. When all 3 heads were at 180* or more as they ship, the last head in the line had a weak spray. When I turned the corners to 90* and adjusted the radius of the 180* it helped. I'm getting my 24' of radius easily. Although they do seem to rotate slower than I was expecting. About half the speed of the videos I've watched. Maybe that's the 30psi?

I would say I'm at the limit of my (6gpm) faucet water supply though. I calculate the sprinkler demand at about 3.16 GPM. The front 6 heads will be MP1000 on PRS40's which I calculate at 1.68GPM so I'm not worried there. I don't think you will be able to go near the max of your faucet GPM.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

@Utk03analyst and @gatorguy, It finally stopped raining long enough for me to catch up on yard chores so I could measure my hose bib's flow and pressure. Holy cow! I haven't checked in about 3 years. *I got 105 PSI and filled a 5 gallon bucket in less than 30 seconds!* This is really bad. My Pressure Reducing Valve has completely failed! I'm getting full curb pressure and flow inside my house. For my 3/4" pipes, this translates to about 7.25 FPS velocity and potential water hammer pressures above 200 PSI. Ugh.

Guess I'm going to be digging and replacing that old Pressure Reducing Valve ASAP. Oh well, it's a good time to add a T and stub out 18" or so of 1" pipe for a future backyard irrigation system.

*Lesson learned: check your plumbing water pressure every year.* I don't have any typical signs of water hammer: no weird noises or vibration. Both my toilet valves failed this year (no doubt due to water hammer), but I had no other clues.


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## gatorguy (Mar 13, 2020)

@JasonRMorrow Good to know, thanks for that. I could run pex pipe off my mainline at the front, through the crawl space and out the back if it would increase flow I soppose.

@hsvtoolfool Thanks for that write up. Will have to look into it I guess. Wondering if my hose bibs bypass the pressure reducing valve🤔

That's insane! Poor mans pressure washer right there!


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## NELawn (May 7, 2019)

JasonRMorrow said:


> I would say I'm at the limit of my (6gpm) faucet water supply though. I calculate the sprinkler demand at about 3.16 GPM. The front 6 heads will be MP1000 on PRS40's which I calculate at 1.68GPM so I'm not worried there. I don't think you will be able to go near the max of your faucet GPM.


I originally designed my system with MP1000's I wasn't;t happy with their output and bumped all of them up to MP2000. From what I heard with the MP Rotators, you always shoot for extra coverage as opposed to just head to head. I also read to shoot to the next head up if your in-between two different sprinkler heads. Overall I just read that the MP2000's work better than the MP1000's and seem to adjust better.

The MP2000's ended up having the same range I need the MP1000's for, but just worked better.

When my system was in I did have to switch a MP3000 down to a MP2000 because it wasn't getting enough pressure. I also downgrading a MP2000 to a MP1000 because I was getting way too much water in one zone.

So get extra heads you might have to make some adjustments once it is all put in.


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