# Advice for setting up irrigation



## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

I want to know what you think of my plan. Is there anything you would do differently kind of deal as far as sprinkler head placement.

I am going to upgrade my system to an above ground system with as few hoses as possible.

Here is a pic of what I have planned out



I am going to run pcv pipe above ground along the fence as shown. The sprinkler in the middle will still be run by a hose but I will connect it to the two heads on the left side of the yard. The heads on the left and middle will be run from one water spicket and the 2 on the right will be run from the other at the same time. I can only run 3 pgp heads at time time with my pressure and GPM supply from the spickets.

Couple of questions.

I can run at most 6 heads split between the 2 spickets at once. Would you change the layout at all? (Maybe to include another head)

Would you use a different head? Maybe the MP rotator?

My goal for all of this is to be able to leave my system out around the edge of the fence without the need to drag many hoses around. I plan on setting the it up the night before and running everything on a timer early in the morning and then putting up what few hoses I have for the day when I get up in the morning.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

The 40 * 50 will be a problem or choice. The heads that is on the left side should be set to throw 40 feet, so it hits the lawn on the right side. If you do this, then the heads from the north/south will not hit each other (missed by 10 feet). Head to head coverage is the most important thing. If you set to throw at 50ft, then you will be watering the fence/neighbors yard by 10 feet.

You dont need the center one in this configuration.

Options that quickly come to mind:
1) add some tree/mulch/shrub area to shrink 10 feet, but that's a lot. This will yield a 40 x 40 area, but it might not be desired to loose 10feet of yard.
2) Do two zones (40x 40) + (10 X 40). The second zone will use MP1000 at 10ft throws (using 8 heads in that zone).

Look at page 10 Zone E of this design guide: https://www.hunterindustries.com/sites/default/files/design_guide_Residential_System_LIT-226-US.pdf


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

g-man said:


> The 40 * 50 will be a problem or choice. The heads that is on the left side should be set to throw 40 feet, so it hits the lawn on the right side. If you do this, then the heads from the north/south will not hit each other (missed by 10 feet). Head to head coverage is the most important thing. If you set to throw at 50ft, then you will be watering the fence/neighbors yard by 10 feet.
> 
> You dont need the center one in this configuration.
> 
> ...


If I was designing an in-ground system I would agree. My problem is this is just a make shift cheap system that will go above ground. If I build what you are suggesting, then I run into the same problem of dragging a bunch of hoses out Everytime I want to water.

What about doing 6 pgp heads around the perimeter. One in each corner, then one in the middle on each side of the 50' sides. I know I will not be able to get 100% overlap but just trying to create the best system that fits my current needs with what I have to work with.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I found a picture you posted before. I know you are south, so the sun pattern might not give that much constant shade. Do any of the walls provide any shade that might require less water. I'm asking because the design goal is even coverage, but it might not be needed.

A couple of more options.

Still build the 40 x 40 (4 pgp heads), but since the pipe is above ground, you have the ability to move it north/south every other week/night to cover the 10 feet. Ideal? no, but probably ok.

Build the 40 x 50. Is it perfect? no. but it will be better than an impact sprinkler. It will have 4 dry spots.

I think the idea of the 6 pgp (4 corners + 2 180 @ 25ft) might be worst. It will be more uneven at the center. Draw it up and do the circles and you will see how many overlaps you get in the middle.


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## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

I have the MP Rotators for the main part of my yards. I love them. It's too early to tell if they're actually good as I just had them installed this spring, as far as how my irrigation guy did, but I got them because they have them in my HOA's system which sat dormant, unused for 5 years and popped up immediately when we cut them on.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

I might try 4 90's with one in each corner, 4 180's one halfway between each corner and 1 360 in the middle. These would all be mp rotators. I do not know if I have the GPM to supply all that though through 2 spickets. It is a little more than running 6 pgp heads. Is there a better way of measuring my GPM then sitting there seeing how long it takes to fill up a gallon bucket?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

There are.

Do you have access to your meter? Take a reading and ask that no one uses the house water, run the water thru hose for X min (5), Read the meter again. Do the math.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

g-man said:



> There are.
> 
> Do you have access to your meter? Take a reading and ask that no one uses the house water, run the water thru hose for X min (5), Read the meter again. Do the math.


I do have access I believe. I will have to try that this weekend


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Just asking, but could you divide the run time between halves of the yard? In order to water the yard, all of the heads don't have to run at the same time, just divide them up into hose zones, and supply the rotors on one side for x minutes and the other side for x minute to get total coverage? Still watering the whole area, just the only constraint being your 5/8" hose. You could also upsize to a 3/4" hose FWIW.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> Just asking, but could you divide the run time between halves of the yard? In order to water the yard, all of the heads don't have to run at the same time, just divide them up into hose zones, and supply the rotors on one side for x minutes and the other side for x minute to get total coverage? Still watering the whole area, just the only constraint being your 5/8" hose. You could also upsize to a 3/4" hose FWIW.


That is the next thing I am looking at. If I do, I Will probably run all the heads along the fence on the 2 spickets at the same time and then run the one 360 in the middle after on its own

How much of a difference would a 3/4" hose make?


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

More volume of water through the hose, not constrained by the supply line(i.e. your water hose)

Found this cool calculator


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> More volume of water through the hose, not constrained by the supply line(i.e. your water hose)
> 
> Found this cool calculator


So according to the website all I really need to know is my water pressure at the spicket to know if I can supply enough GPM?

If that is the case I have a cheap guage to read pressure. Hopefully it is somewhere in the ballpark of being correct


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I tried this website and I don't trust it. I used 5/8 , 60psi and 25ft and it yields 56gpm. That doesn't seem right.


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## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

For pressure, get a static water pressure gauge from Amazon.

For flow, fill up a 5 gallon bucket with a stop watch.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

So I decided to get a few measurements to help design my system. I went ahead and measured water pressure as well as flow.

spicket 1 - left side of house- 52 psi, 7gpm after a 100' of 3/4" hose
spicket 2. - right side of house - 55 psi, 6 gpm after 6' of 5/8" hose

My plan

layout



I am going to run mp3000 heads at 25 psi which would put the throw at about 25 ft. If I run at 25 psi I have enough flow to run all 9 heads from the 2 spicket. It also works out for the throw that I need. To be able to do this though, I would have to run a pressure regulator before each sprinkler head.
Something like this
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DIG-25-psi-3-4-in-Pipe-Thread-Pressure-Regulator-D46P/100118306

In my picture I have circled what heads I am going to group together to be able to run everything at once. 
My concerns are-
1. for the left side of the house, I am going to have to run 115 ft of pvc pipe around the edge of the fence. Do you think I will still have 25 psi and enough GPM by the time I reach my last head in the group 115 ft later?
2. I believe both psi and GPM decrease the longer it has to travel. The group on the left side with the 6 heads needs 6.45 gpm at 25 psi according to the charts from hunters website. I am more worried about flow. I only have 7 GPM to work with on the strand. Do you think it would work? I would hate to spend around $200 and not be able to run what I want.

3. my other thought is to possibly connect all 8 heads around the edge of the yard together and connect both spickets to it at the same time so I gete all 13 gpm total at the same time on the same line. Could this possibly work better?

4. the other option is to run mp2000s with out a pressure regulator so I would be somewhere around 40-50 psi for the whole system. doing this I would only get 21 ft radius on my throw and would not get complete 100% overlap in certain areas( I might have to do this anyways because I do not think I can run those 25 psi regulators like I linked and I do not want to use 30 psi sprinkler bodies if I can avoid it).


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Here are some PVC pressure loss charts.

Regarding running both faucets at once, I wouldn't assume that you can get 13 gpm with both on at the same time.


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

You will also want to make sure you utilize some sort of backflow device if connecting this system to a faucet. They make a vacuum breaker that threads onto the outdoor faucet.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

@Ware thanks for the chart. Looks like I will lose about 4 psi.

My question now is does anyone know of a 25 psi regulator that would go right before the head? Only thing I am finding is a regulator that goes on the spicket to connect a hose to. I would think I would not want to use the regulator at the beginning of the system. It would work better if it was right before the nozzle so the pressure stays up through out the whole system except for at the nozzles.


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Ral1121 said:


> My question now is does anyone know of a 25 psi regulator that would go right before the head?


I would probably do whatever I had to do design-wise to use Hunter PRS30 bodies. I think it would be a cleaner setup.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@Ral1121 If you want to use MPs, then I would go with the MP3000 on Pro Sprays PRS30. The top screw of the nozzle allows for a 25% reduction of the throw. Therefore the MP3000 @ 30 could go from 27ft to 20ft. I think you will want the center head to do 20ft (not to water the fence).

I would not use the reducer you have listed. Use the spray heads instead.

You measured the pressure/gpm under nominal conditions. In the peak of summer at 6-7am when everyone is trying to water their lawns plus someone in the house uses water, you wont get 7gpm. I would try to avoid going past 6gpm in a zone. Therefore I would do the zones like this: Zone 1 - the 3 by the house + the center one, Zone 2 - the rest. I think this keeps them all below 6gpm.

I'm not sure why you want to run from both spigots at the same time or at all. I would use the spigot at the right of you drawings and feed from there both zones. Zone 1 will be like a T and Zone 2 like a U. At the spigot you install a timer with 2 or more valves. Like this one: Timer The timer will turn on one hose (Zone 1) run it for X min/hrs and then turn it off and switch to the other hose/Zone. If you dont want to spend the money on the timer, you could just get a splitter like this one: Splitter. You would close one side and manually switch it to the other zone. (The ones from tractor supply are better since they have a larger ID in the valve than these. That restriction will affect pressure/gpm).

Edit: Ware beat me by 3min in suggesting the same bodies.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

@@Ware @g-man thanks for all your help. I think I have good grasp on what I am going to do.

I originally wanted to run them at the same time from separate spickets because it would take less time over all. If I go from one spicket I would go from the spicket on the left side of the hose. It always seems I have better pressure and flow from that side of the house. I have looked into those timers and have been told that they restrict flow quite a bit. I was thinking about doing a single outlet timer on each spicket instead of a multi outlet timer. Have not decided on that yet though. Need to do more research.

Here is what I have decided though
I will use mp3000 heads on prs30 shrub bodies to limit how high the nozzle is since it is above ground.
I am pretty sure I will use you zones that you outlined as well although that means I will have a pipe running across a pathway(entrance to backyard is on left side of house.
I am still trying to decide if any what timer I am going to use. More research is needed


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

Well I just ordered everything I need from sprinklerwarehouse.com. I went with

Mp3000 nozzles
Prs30 shrub bodies
Everything will be 3/4 PVC pipe

Still unsure about what timer I am going to use but should hopefully have something set up next week.


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## Ral1121 (Mar 19, 2018)

So got quite a bit done today. I built my makeshift sprinkler system. I used mp3000 nozzles and Hunter prs30 shrub heads. 9 of them to be exact to get almost 💯 percent coverage. I have maybe a 2ft area on the sides where the center 360 nozzle does not reach because my yard is 50x40. I set it up in 2 zones and only have to drag out a hose and one sprinkler head in the middle. Pretty happy with it. Ended up using quick connects on the hoses as well to speed things up as well.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Great! I'm glad it worked out for you.


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

g-man said:


> Great! I'm glad it worked out for you.


+1 :thumbsup:


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