# Sprinkler Run Times



## xDMRx23 (Jun 10, 2020)

So I'm curious how long it takes everyone to get half an inch down. It takes on average an hour per sprinkler position for me sometimes longer. (Poor man's irrigation system). I'm able to run two Orbit gear drive heads at a time and use 75 ft. hose. I set my sprinkler gauge (one per head) in the center of the zone being covered. I check every 30 minutes. From what I read every one makes it seem like no problem to get down half an inch. Is it just my pressure? Am I measuring wrong? Just curious for other's input. I want to get water down but it's tough getting out at 3am and spending five hours moving sprinkler heads. Thanks for any input.


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## San (Jun 21, 2021)

To get 1" water onto 1ksqft, takes 620 gallons. So half an inch will take 310 gallons.
If you have 7ksqft and want to get half an inch down, this will take 2170 gallons.

Let's say your water through your hose/head runs at about 7 gallons per minute. This would mean you would need to run for 310 minutes, to get your water down. Which is 5 hours and 10 minutes.

Obviously you can run some gauges to see when the water gets there, but you can also run water into a bucket from your 75ft. hose and see what your flow is.

To speed things up, see what flow you can get from your outside faucet directly, if the flow/pressure is a lot higher than the flow/pressure spec for your heads, consider using a 1" hose and running two heads at the same time.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@xDMRx23 i moved this to the irrigation folder.

Yes it takes a long time. My system takes (inground) 1hr for 0.5in of irrigation per zone. In our heavy soils, that's actually good since the infiltration rate can be 0.1in per hour. Lower precipitation rates reduce runoff.

At my previous house I had a poor man system too. But I used a 4 zone timer with a schedule to water using 4 hoses. I set it to start at 3am and it will cycle thru the hoses after running each for 1hr (or whatever duration you want). The trick is that you know it is not possible to do the whole yard in one night, therefore you set up the sprinklers for an area and move them the next evening for the other area. I use to hide some sprinklers in the mulch with a leader hose and a quick disconnect. Once you get a system down, it works ok until you leave for vacation (pray for rain).

There is a thread someone started a few years ago using inground valves in a PVC manifold for an above ground controller. The main benefit is that you can do 8 valves to water more areas and use a commercial irrigation controller for wifi access.


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## xDMRx23 (Jun 10, 2020)

Thanks for the reply. Made me feel a little better. I know you're in the Indy area too, was more so concerned with the times I was getting for .5" of water. I don't mind moving sprinkler or getting out early in the morning, as long as I'm doing it correctly. I was just blindly going off of what the "average" time was for .5" of water without measuring, turns out I was about a quarter inch off the whole time, until I started wondering why my grass was still showing signs of stress, which led me to conduct audit of my zones. Anyway thanks again.


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## xDMRx23 (Jun 10, 2020)

Appreciate it @San. Didn't think about the 1" hose either. Like I said, I actually enjoy setting and moving my sprinklers. I only have just over 5,000 sq ft between front and backyard. I was concerned that I wasn't measuring properly or maybe the equipment I was using. Much appreciate the input!


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## azgasser (May 30, 2021)

Just sharing my approach and take it, leave it, or adapt it into your program. Once I figured out the times per zone needed I took that time and divided in thirds. Then I run each zone as needed for a third of the total time all the way through then repeat the same thing two more times as part of the watering for that day. Sort of like layers of a cake. Not sure where I came across this but it was not my original idea. My thought is that this layered approach let more water penetrate the soil, especially my denser clay soils. I came from the desert southwest where 1/4” of rain could flood streets due the ground being hard and dry and not being able to take up that water right away but after a few good monsoon rains the ground had softened a bit and take up more rain water. Just my 2 cents.


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