# Parking Strip Irrigation



## JayGo (Jun 13, 2019)

Greetings from toasty Round Rock, TX. 🥵

I have a parking strip that is 30' x 3.5'. There are two in-ground drip lines that run the length of the strip that have done well the past 3 growing seasons. But I'd like to be able to water from above on occasion to help cool off the grass during extreme heat periods.

Looks like Rain Bird makes nozzles for this specific application, but I can't find any videos showing them in action.


I'm thinking a PVC stand with the right fittings and two sprinkler heads right next to each with the 15RCS and 15LCS nozzles facing away from each other would cover the area well. (As in place my homemade PVC stand right in the center of the strip so the heads can water outwards to the ends.)
Thoughts?


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## JayGo (Jun 13, 2019)

Crickets. &#129431;


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

@JayGo I moved this to the irrigation subforum.

For proper head-to-head coverage it would require 3 heads:


15LCS - 15SST - 15RCS, or
15EST - 15CST - 15EST

Depending on whether you want to place the heads at the edge of the strip or in the center of the strip.

What you are suggesting could be accomplished with either a single 15SST or a single 15CST, but the precipitation rate would not be uniform over the 30ft length.


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## JayGo (Jun 13, 2019)

Ware said:


> @JayGo I moved this to the irrigation subforum.
> 
> For proper head-to-head coverage it would require 3 heads:
> 
> ...


@Ware Thanks. And apologies for posting my question in the wrong spot. Still learning the forum.
Where did you find that chart you shared? I've been looking for 
something like that. 
I did see the 15SST and the 15CST, but assumed that coverage would be iffy. So you dont think that a 15RCS and a 15LCS would cover the 30' as a pair?
The PVC stand I envision is a small-ish one rather than stringing together longer pipes. But from your suggestion, it looks like i may be wrong on that.


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

@JayGo no worries.

Here are the spec sheets I found that covers those nozzles:

https://ww3.rainbird.com/documents/turf/chart_MPRnozzles.pdf

And what I'm saying is a 15LCS (4x15' @ 30psi) and a 15RCS (4x15' @ 30psi) would do pretty much the same thing as a single 15SST (4x30' @ 30psi).

Per the spec sheet, the 15SST would actually put out a little more volume - 1.21gpm @ 30psi versus 2x 0.49gpm @ 30psi with the left and right corner nozzles. Make sense?

But again, with any nozzle the precipitation rate is not going to be uniform across the entire radius. They put down more water near the head and less water at the edges of the spray pattern - so they rely on a head-to-head spacing to put down the same amount of water across the entire radius. Here is a good graphic from Irrigation Tutorials that illustrates the concept:



Without head-to-head spacing, you end up either over watering the area nearest the head or under watering the areas farthest away from the head.

All that said, that may or may not be a concern to you since it sounds like you're just wanting to set it up like a hose end sprinkler. Just note that uniform coverage would require 3 nozzles for that area. :thumbup:


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

FYI, hunter also makes nozzles like this, but with less precipitation rate (ideal for clay soils). They are the MP strips (left, center and right).

In regards to watering to cool the plants, the research is not conclusive around it (syringing). There are a ton of YT videos that show the effect last a few minutes at most.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

Everything Ware said is correct, and it will take 3 heads minimum. But for side-strips, I'd go with 4 or 5 nozzles with plenty of overlap between heads. The narrow, rectangular pattern nozzles aren't effecient. It's just not possible to avoid watering the street and sidewalk, and precipitation rates are not as reliable as with the circular 90° to 360° spray patterns using in larger areas.

G-man made my other point. There's another thread on "syringing" to cool down grass. You may want to read that thread if cooling is your main motivation for spray heads. You may be wasting a lot of time and water...

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=594


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## JayGo (Jun 13, 2019)

Gentlemen, thanks for your thoughts.

In all of my brilliance &#128518;, I'd never really given consideration to the concept of the calculated overlapping that needs to happen from spray head to spray head. My builder installed the irrigation, so other than making sure every spot of my lawn gets water, I'd never really thought about it more than that. Glad I asked this question.

As far as cooling down the lawn, I'm fairly confident it works from my own experience in my current situation. I leveled my lawn a couple of weeks ago with sand, so I've been watering a little more than I normally would. Plus, I figure the sand gets hot in this Texas sun and that a short midday watering might help offset some of that extra heat. The only part of my lawn that doesn't get water from above is the parking strip. It's yellow-ed a bit in the past week or so while the rest of my lawn remains green where it has grown through the sand. I watered the strip 2 days ago during the day and again yesterday, and it is noticeably on the greener side today.

Regardless of all that, it looks like the consensus is that I need sprayer heads to water from the edges to the center and from the center to the edges.
I was trying to make this work with something small I could store easily. Ha ha Maybe I just need to continue to do this by hand in the blazing sun.


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