# My irrigation Plan



## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

My name is Haiko and I live in Germany. We own a house since 5 years and I'm tired of moving my sprinkler from point to point and finding the right place for them. Especially because our kids have a adventure tower and trampoline :shock:



So I have started to plan my first irrigation plan. At the beginning I noticed that my flow pressure at 3,5 bar is much too low. 
Flow pressure (10l bucket)
Flow pressure 3,0Bar = 300 seconds
Flow pressure 2,5Bar = 90 seconds
Flow pressure 2,0Bar = 70 seconds
Well, my plumber just installed a too thin pipe :x

Keeping in mind that our kids will use their adventure tower only for the next 5-7 years (they are already 3 and 5 years old) and latest at this time we plan to rearrange our garden (including installing a new pipe from central heating room) I tried to plan my irrigation plan with this limited flow pressure.

Unfortunatly there's no good forum in Germany available to discuss the planning of Hunter MP rotators. So hopefully you guys can help me with this 

I have already started to install 4 MP rotator

Running only 2 MP rotators is working fine, even running all 4 of them is working fine.

I've thought my design in the front has some restrictions (head to head irrigation) and I have redesign my plan. Now I have planned to install 3 zones finally. Left and right zone have 0,35m³/h and rear zone has 0,22m³/h. My aim was to use mp rotators from hunter (low precipitation) and install only as much as necessary.



Does this sound like to good plan and should I change something?
Thanks for your help


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@Haiko welcome to TLF.

3.5bar is doable for your system. Of course 4 bar will be better. Do you know what pipes can you get? Ideally something with an internal diameter of 25mm.

Im confused by your layout. Can you upload something with just the grass areas? I think you ended up with too many heads and the blue, and different shade of greens is not clear to me if you want to water those areas or not.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

@g-man My problem is the water tap in the garden. This one has only a pipe of 16mm and can only be changed by installing a new pipe from the cellar to the garden. I have planned to do this together with the rearrangement of our garden in five years. Until then I try to find a easy and small solution 

That's a plan from the grass area


Light green area - grass

Dark green area - I just noticed that this is hard to see in the picture above. The hedge behind the adventure tower is 0.5m higher than the grass. The dark green is a grass slope (increase in height by 0.5m). An irrigation of this area is OK but not necessary.

Blue area - On the right and left side this is a hedge too but on the same level as the grass. An irrigation of this area is OK but not necessary. There will be a separate dripline.

Red area - Behind the advanture tower there's also a small grass area but an irrigation is not necessary.

So the light green part is the important one 

This is a plan only from the rotators




> I think you ended up with too many heads


Could be, that's the reason why I'm here  
I just was trying to reduce the amount of rotators and find a smaller solutions. Just keeping in mind that this will be an interims solution only for a couple of years.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I understand now. I see you plan to keep the adventure tower (swing set in the USA). Do you plan to keep the trampoline too? Both of them will affect the trajectory of the water from the nozzle, so I have to think about it. This will be a challenge, but I like challenges.

Near what large city are you in Deutschland? Mainly to understand your weather.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

@g-man Thanks for your help. I know that this isn't easy :-



> Do you plan to keep the trampoline too? Both of them will affect the trajectory of the water from the nozzle


Yes, our kids are 3 and 5 years old first. In the past I used a rectangular sprinkler and I had to move the trampoline from the back to the front to irregate the grass 

My expectation is that in 5 to 7 years our kids are too old for a swing set and we will remove this one. Furthermore our hedge in the back (above the dark green area) is affected by the box tree moth every year. I guess we will loose this fight (as most of our neighbours already) and have to remove the hedge too. There will be a lot to do in the future and a big rearragement of our garden must be done including laying a new lawn.

I don't like to wait with an irrigation system till 2025 / 2027. My current solution (rectangular sprinkler) is wasting so much time. That's the root cause why I try to find an easy temporary (sure not perfect) solution.



> Near what large city are you in Deutschland? Mainly to understand your weather.


Near Frankfurt https://goo.gl/maps/xpvCdgviUAwSuPRc8
But in compare to our neighbouring village (we are 200m above them) our temperature is always 2 degree Celsius below (mountain village)


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

@g-man I took a couple of pictures to give you are more detailed impression on our lawn 😊


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I've been thinking about it, but I need some time to put it on paper. I will try to post some time this week. I'm familiar with the Frankfurt weather.

What is the white post ?


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> I've been thinking about it, but I need some time to put it on paper.


Thanks for your help in advance



g-man said:


> What is the white post ?


What for a white post?

Meanwhile I did some practical test with a few Mp1000 and Mp2000 rotators. Even with my low pressure I'm capable to operate 3-4 rotators at once  
Furthermore I noticed that the range of the rotators is lower to the right (where the radius ends) and higher at the left side (where the rotator starts). I guess that's normal.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

In front of the trampoline, there is something white. A post or a beam. What is it?

One of the ideas I had was to use mp strips. They have a lower trajectory than the mp2000.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

Oh, I see. That's a rotary clothes dryer.

I already tried the mp1000 and trajectory is below the trampoline. That's why my idea is to install the mp2000 only in the front.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

So I have two layouts. I first did what it will look like if there was no adventure tower. I just wanted to be sure long term you can reuse those heads.

I was thinking of the strips, but it will be too costly to do.

So this layout is similar to the one you had. It uses an mp2000 in the center that might overeater the terrace a little bit. I don't think the mp1000 will have the reach since the specs are a max of 4.6m. I'm trying to keep the radius in the 4.5m range for all the heads. The area behind the adventure tower will be a challenge.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> So I have two layouts. I first did what it will look like if there was no adventure tower. I just wanted to be sure long term you can reuse those heads.


Thanks for your great help and sharing your plan with me :thumbup: 
It's a good idea to reuse the heads later.



g-man said:


> I was thinking of the strips, but it will be too costly to do.


I tried to find a layout with them too but the trampolin area is too big (circle diameter is 3.5m) to be cover with only a few strips.



g-man said:


> It uses an mp2000 in the center that might overeater the terrace a little bit.


No problem, in my design (especially due to the trajectory) I overeater the terrace a little bit too



g-man said:


> I don't think the mp1000 will have the reach since the specs are a max of 4.6m. I'm trying to keep the radius in the 4.5m range for all the heads.


4.6m require 3.8bar. I have only a low flow pressure and I did some practical tests meanwhile. According to my tests I have 2.3bar. 
The range is 
mp1000 3.7m 
mp2000 5.8m



g-man said:


> The area behind the adventure tower will be a challenge.


Yes, it is. I forgot to mention that there's a sandbox under the advanture tower that should not be flooded  

That's why, in my plan, I skipped this area. I will manually irrigate this.



g-man said:


> So I have two layouts.


I used your layout for a new plan.


As far as I can see due to my low presure and range of the heads this will be difficult


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## SOLARSUPLEX (Aug 4, 2020)

Hey, what software are you using to create these plans?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Haiko, I would remove the head in the south left corner. It is just going to get the sand wet. You might need to hand water back there.

Also the center head, you can make that a 300 degree coverage, so it covers all the way south and maybe up to the adventure tower.

Now that you have the layout, then you need to figure out the gpm (lpm) for your zones. The 2 mp2000 will need the most water, so I would keep those two in one zone and then see if you can do all the other ones in another one. What is your design lpm?


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

SOLARSUPLEX said:


> Hey, what software are you using to create these plans?


There's a German webstite with a planning tool, also available in English 
https://dvs-beregnung.de/Drawing-Tool


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> Also the center head, you can make that a 300 degree coverage, so it covers all the way south and maybe up to the adventure tower.


Could be difficult. I guess the sand will get wet and the trajectory of the mp2000 is not below the trampoline




g-man said:


> What is your design lpm?


According to my latest tests I guess this will be 6lpm at maximum.



g-man said:


> The 2 mp2000 will need the most water,


By the current design they need more than 7 lpm together.

At the moment my favorit design is the following


3 zones, 2 zones with approximately 6lpm and 1 with 4lpm. The mp1000 in the middle will spray below the trampoline.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

6lpm is way too low. You will struggle to fill a toilet or taking a shower.

Do you know you water pipe diameter?

Using a hose, try to measure how long it takes to fill 20 -25L container. You want the hose close to the spigot and running fully open. Move the hose to fill the container while at the same time you start a timer (eg. iPhone). Count how many seconds it takes to fill and repeat 3 times.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> Do you know you water pipe diameter?


The diameter of spigot is 1/2"

I already did a couple of tests with a 10l container. Without reducing the flow pressure 
It took 25sec. Reducing the flow pressure I had the following results:
Flow pressure 3.0Bar = 300 seconds
Flow pressure 2.5Bar = 90 seconds
Flow pressure 2.0Bar = 70 seconds

Due to this results I planned with around 6lpm at around 2.3bar.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

If you got 10L in 25sec, then your design can use 24Lpm. To be safe at 1/2in, then I would use 22Lpm.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> If you got 10L in 25sec, then your design can use 24Lpm. To be safe at 1/2in, then I would use 22Lpm.


Thanks, by that I could run all rotators in one zone.


What's your oppinion on my latest design?


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## CenlaLowell (Apr 21, 2017)

Haiko said:


> g-man said:
> 
> 
> > If you got 10L in 25sec, then your design can use 24Lpm. To be safe at 1/2in, then I would use 22Lpm.
> ...


How far are you rotators spread apart.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

The location seems like it will work. It is a compromise from the ideal, but there are not too many great options.

Check your math in the flow. I'm getting 0.08 m3h for the 180 mp1000.

Next you need to think the pipe layout.


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

g-man said:


> How far are you rotators spread apart.


In the front I have 7m between the outside rotator and one in the middle


The left and right one have 3.5m to the front each


The one in the middle has 6m to the front


In the back the outside rotator have 7.7m and one in the middle




g-man said:


> Check your math in the flow. I'm getting 0.08 m3h for the 180 mp1000.


I got
0.13 m3h for both 120 mp2000 in the front
0.11 m3h for the 180 mp1000 in the front and back + both left and right
0.12 for the 210 mp1000 right to the adventure tower
0.06 for the 90 mp1000 in the back
in total 0.95



g-man said:


> Next you need to think the pipe layout.


Yes, that would be my next step


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## Haiko (Aug 28, 2020)

During the last days I installed all rotators according to my latest plan.

Yesterday I started to measured precipitation


The result was OK. There is some room for improvement on the left and right side (mp2000). I will increase the angle.


Finally I'm statisfied with the result and let's see what happens next summer 

@g-man Thank's for your help


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