Watering System For The Garden

[UKJASE]

Hi Guys, hope you are good.

We are in the process of laying a lawn of about 150 m2 at our newly built house. I want to put a watering system down first, then lay the lawn on top of the pipes. We have one Hitachi pump for all our watering needs in the garden. This pump is not strong enough to water 150 m2 all at once, so i have put some valves in, and we should be able to water about a quarter at a time, then switch to the next section.

At the minute i am laying the pipes, and trying out a few sprinklers. I am finding though, that i can only get about 5 sprinklers per set of pipes, and each of these sprinklers will only cover a distance of about 2 metres each (ie will water a circle of diameter about 4 metres).

This means i am using a lot of pipe, plus the watering process will take take a long time, as i need to switch to the 4 different stages of the garden (plus we have the front garden to do).

I have been using various types of screw on sprinklers from Thai Watsadu. They are only about 10 baht each, but as i say, seem to only cover a small area.

Can any recommend the best type of sprinklers to use. We did try the rotating arm ones, with the spring, that spike into the ground, but these are quite big, and easy to break, and dont look too great due to the size.

Any recommendations guys?

[Crossy]

If you have a specimen lawn (flat, green stripes etc) then you should probably be looking at pop-up sprinklers. Not cheap and you will need a bigger pump

Actually if you want to drive more than a couple of sprinklers you'll likely need a bigger pump anyway. LuckyPro do some cheap non-automatic ones that will do the job without breaking the bank.

We have a meadow type lawn, rather bigger than 150m² (nearer 1,500m²). We have big (1¹/₂") impulse sprinklers that came from the farm shop and a 3HP pump to drive them (it will still only drive two at once). I located them at the edges so they don't get in the way of mowing.

Obviously the above is overkill for you but you might consider decent "lawn sized" impulse sprinklers around the edges, what are the dimensions of your lawn?

[UKJASE]

dimensions of the lawn are probably about 8m x 8m Crossy. It doesnt need to be "specimen" mate, just green will do

The pump we have is an Hitachi 100GX2. About 4,000 baht. I dont really want to have to replace the pump if i dont have to

[Crossy]

I'd be tempted to run a few of these round the edges https://www.directtoshop.com/product/127684 with possibly a couple of pop-ups https://www.directtoshop.com/product/81706 in the centre if you don't get the coverage (or use a portable on a hose to fill in the gaps).

You need to use bigger pipe than you think to minimise drag on your small pump, probably 1".

[longball53098]

My DIY system is 6 zones with an average of 4 heads per zone. Manual valves to start/stop each zone. All zones are supplied from my borehole well. The sumersible Franklin pump is pumping all the water to the said zones as needed. All zones are fed with 1" (25mm) pvc pipe. All risers to the heads are 1/2" pipe. I have no pop ups. The pressure to a zone and the 4 or 5 heads can easily send the water over a distance of 10 meters. All heads are made by Naan ( https://www.google.co.th/search?q=naan+sprinklers&biw=1600&bih=775&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjCnMio65nNAhWJo48KHbUuCSkQsAQIMQ )

I sourced the heads from a seller here in Bangkok. The system has been operating now for 7 years with minimal service as one gardener kept breaking heads but he is history now. Current guy is much better at avoidng the risers.

Edited June 9, 2016 by longball53098

[Crossy]

You could take the scientific approach, http://orbit.homedepot.com/sprinkler_design

[longball53098]

Here are 2 docs that may help you.

SprinklerHandbook.pdf

ToroIrragation.pdf

[UKJASE]

just reporting back guys - thanks for all the great advice. After reading through some of it (i didnt realise irrigation was such a science!) i came to the conclusion that my pipework could be improved. The section of pipes just after the pump quickly decreases from 3/4 inch pipe to 1/2 inch, and there was lots of unnecessary bends and joins in the system, plus i discovered when i dismantled some of it, that last time when i was joining sections of PVC pipe together, i was simply dipping PVC join into the tin of pipe weld glue, and joining pipes. when i dismantled sections, i looked into the pipe, and often where the glue was inside the pipe from me dipping it, it had clogged up a little, and then started to get a build up on it, and started to partially block the pipe. all this was decreasing my water pressure i guess.

so now i have more wider 3/4 inch pipe and valves, joins that have been glued by only painting glue onto the relevant surfaces, and less bends and unnecessary joins. Now the water pressure seems much better.

I have 5 small 10 baht spray type sprinklers on two of the systems, and each of those waters an area of about 4 metres diameter. On the third system i have two rotary arm sprinklers (50 baht from thai watsadu) and these will spray water about 6 metres in all directions, so a 12 m diameter circle. i may even put a third sprinkler onto this system tomorrow, as it was spraying so far that the balcony was getting wet.

All the sprinklers are either screw in, or pushed onto a section of hose, so if they get broken, or i find ones of a better design, then can be easily swapped over.

Really pleased - so thanks for the advice guys, and all round mine for a game of boules once i get the grass in

[SantiSuk]

My garden and irrigation system was professionally designed and installed by a small company that worked on the grounds of Swampy airport. Was/am very happy with the product of all but the sprinkler system. It worked fantastically fot the first few months but then the sprinkler tops started to bung up (my well water is high calc and i don't filter). No amount of cleaning the parts with proprietary calc clean sachets/acid etc would make them work well. Found a fix that worked well by inserting rubber washers in the head that prevented the heads fully retracting and sticking in their barrels. Problem was that the sprinklers now protruded by another inch and the kids/garden boy (BIL) keep tripping over them until they break off the base connector. Spent more time maintaining/repairing the sprinkler system than anything else. Watsadu sprinklers are cheap but cr&p replacements for the initial installs - need to spend a few hours searching for the installers business card!

It's often back to manual watwring with hoses and rotary sprinklers on poles. Never mind the 4 hours on my feet moving the polez is good exercise!

The pro used flexible piping off reels by the way. Nothing smaller than 1 inch and main branch pipes are as wide as 2 inches. The pump is quite a brute too.

[kannot]

I'd be tempted to run a few of these round the edges https://www.directtoshop.com/product/127684 with possibly a couple of pop-ups https://www.directtoshop.com/product/81706 in the centre if you don't get the coverage (or use a portable on a hose to fill in the gaps).

You need to use bigger pipe than you think to minimise drag on your small pump, probably 1".

which we now know is 28mm inside diameter

[Crossy]

I'd be tempted to run a few of these round the edges https://www.directtoshop.com/product/127684 with possibly a couple of pop-ups https://www.directtoshop.com/product/81706 in the centre if you don't get the coverage (or use a portable on a hose to fill in the gaps).

You need to use bigger pipe than you think to minimise drag on your small pump, probably 1".

which we now know is 28mm inside diameter

It's an "engineering" inch

[Manassas]

_{Just put in a new lawn. To water the new turf I raised the sprinkler height to about 80cm. That gives good distance for coverage. Later I can cut them down or just plant a shrub next to them. Of course, it's raining now so don't turn them on at all.}