# DIY Sprinkler install postponed...thanks Denver



## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

So I had done a bunch of reading and youtubing and was feeling pretty confident and excited about putting in a spinkler system myself. 
I had measured my yard, picked my equipment, planned out how many heads I'd need and priced everything out. 
I just needed to measure pressure and flow rate to make sure I was good to go and see how many zones I'd need.
Pressure came in at 58psi, great.
Flow....flow was stupid low. 4GPM. Started tracing all the pipes through my house, everything looks good in the house until I get to the 2" of supply line I can see coming from the meter into the house. From what I can tell it's 1" galvanized steel. Thats not good, probably old and full of gunk. I'm gonna have to replace that line, thats a bummer. 
Contacted a plumber to start getting some bids on that work, he does some research and calls me up: "Well, I can tell you why you have a flow problem. The city supply line from the main to your meter is only a 1/2" pipe, so a max of around 6GPM. Oh and it's lead. And the City won't replace it, even though it's the part they're responsible for, unless it breaks. Replacing it, even if you're just doing it to remove the lead part, is considered an upgrade."

Well thats fun. So in the meantime, if anyone has any advice for when I do get around to installing it, I'd appreciate it. Esp on things like, should my main line to the heads be hard PVC or am I fine with something like blu-lock 3/4" or 1" pipe?


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## jayteebee (Mar 26, 2019)

Not much help but I'm running into some issues myself. Built a cheap/ portable/ above ground "irrigation system" as pictured above. Got some suggestions on LCN's page that if you don't have irrigation, this is the next best thing. So I bought Rain Bird's 5000+ with PRS and got to work.

I've got a splitter on my spigot that allows me to run 2 hoses versus 1. Well, I never had any pressure issues or problems with my old oscillating sprinklers so didn't think twice about my new setup. Boy was I wrong. I set 2 of these fellas to my splitter and I could pee farther than they were spraying. I took the splitter off and used 1 sprinkler and it worked fine, but I'm trying to run all 4 of these at the same time since my yard is 26k sq ft. Went to Home Depot and bought a pressure gauge and I'm hitting roughly 70psi which should be enough, but when I split them it literally splits the pressure in half... which makes sense.

I'm wondering if there's a "high pressure" splitter available or if I'm about to battle a bunch of pipe issues. I haven't started looking at lines partly because I'm scared to. Maybe I should start by calling the water company?

Bright side - I'm glad I'm figuring this out now. I would have lost it if I would've run into this when reno'n in the fall with a bunch of new seed down.

/rant


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## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

jayteebee said:


> Not much help but I'm running into some issues myself. Built a cheap/ portable/ above ground "irrigation system" as pictured above. Got some suggestions on LCN's page that if you don't have irrigation, this is the next best thing. So I bought Rain Bird's 5000+ with PRS and got to work.
> 
> I've got a splitter on my spigot that allows me to run 2 hoses versus 1. Well, I never had any pressure issues or problems with my old oscillating sprinklers so didn't think twice about my new setup. Boy was I wrong. I set 2 of these fellas to my splitter and I could pee farther than they were spraying. I took the splitter off and used 1 sprinkler and it worked fine, but I'm trying to run all 4 of these at the same time since my yard is 26k sq ft. Went to Home Depot and bought a pressure gauge and I'm hitting roughly 70psi which should be enough, but when I split them it literally splits the pressure in half... which makes sense.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you might have a water flow issue like I do. Have you done the bucket test yet?

Also, which version of the 5000+'s do you have (full circle? 180's? and which color nozzle?)


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@jayteebee There used to be a website that had great info on irrigation. Due to some issues the site is down. You can still find the info in link here The tutorial there is great.

In short, pressure is only half of the equation. You also need to measure the gallons per minute (gpm) of your system (based on the available pressure and the size of your pipes). The rough way to get there is to time how long it takes to fill a 5 gallon bucket with water. Once you know that number, then the sprinklers heads you use cannot exceed that number.

So, what you do? Get a timer that has multiple zones in it. The timer will then turn on each hose zone in sequence to allow you to run multiple heads.


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## adgattoni (Oct 3, 2017)

Can't find the specs on these figures, but if I remember correctly the Hunter MP rotators which throw 30 feet & 360 degrees would need something close to 4 gallons per minute per head. If the Rainbird 5000s are similar that's probably your problem - you aren't gonna get 16 GPM out of a standard spigot.


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## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

adgattoni said:


> Can't find the specs on these figures, but if I remember correctly the Hunter MP rotators which throw 30 feet & 360 degrees would need something close to 4 gallons per minute per head. If the Rainbird 5000s are similar that's probably your problem - you aren't gonna get 16 GPM out of a standard spigot.


Yep if this is the right chart: https://www.rainbird.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/2018-02/chart_MPR_RotorNozzles.pdf

If that is the right chart, depending on which nozzle you have in there you could be just dumping water through those heads. If you're measuring 70psi you theortically could be dumping as much as that 9.18GPM per head if it's the tan nozzle, but I think it's safe to assume you're pulling around 4GPM per head through there.


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## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

Quick question back to my problem. Lets just assume I only have 2GPM (at 40psi) to work with:

Should I do "decent" levels of overlapping (will include a pic below of a rough draft layout of this "good enough" method) to minimize my zones (and thus minimize the amount of time per day I'd have to run the system to get through all the zones)?
Or should I do the suggested head to head method and wind up with 7-8 (possibly more) zones?



(quick note, the uneven layout in the green section bottom left, in the bottom left corner of that zone it isn't a square there's a diagonal that goes from the bottom side to the left side that cuts off a portion of that section that doesnt need any water. Also there's a small patio/step outside the garage that accounts for that uncovered zone in the top right corner of the yellow zone)


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

In my opinion, design for even coverage even if you end up with more zones. You can always run 3 zones one day and 3 zones the next. Eventually you might want to get rid of the lead in that pipe (or the pipe breaks  ), thus getting more flow.


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## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

g-man said:


> In my opinion, design for even coverage even if you end up with more zones. You can always run 3 zones one day and 3 zones the next. Eventually you might want to get rid of the lead in that pipe (or the pipe breaks  ), thus getting more flow.


Sigh, that's probably sound advice. This is a much more even/overlapping coverage plan that would only add one more zone, but to be safe I should probably break it out into 6


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## boltfanindenver (May 2, 2019)

Quick clarification if anyone has an answer for this:

When doing the bucket test to confirm things, should I just do the test with the water flowing full open? Or should I do it like the video Ewing Irrigation has on youtube where they set up a pressure gauge and ball valve and do the test at the 40PSI the heads would use?

Trying to plan my zones and I have limited flow but there's a huge (percentage wise) difference between the results at full open (3.75GPM) and at 40PSI (2.05 GPM) At the 3.75 I could definitely do everything in 3/4 zones, but at 2, to be on the safe side I'll need 6 zones.

Any thoughts would be great, thanks


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## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

I'd recommend having the water company come out and "look" at that pipe. Then you tell the guy that comes out "I'll give you $100 to replace this pipe for me, cash".

He will either say yes, or provide a higher figure. I guarantee he will not turn you down.


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