Advice on putting in a sprinkler system

[HeroOfPellinor]

1. With 65 PSI and 10GPM, any reason to not use rotors instead of sprayers? Will save me a fair deal of digging and time.

2. What should I look for in a PVC pipe cement so as to get the best seal and preserve as much of my health as possible?

3. Anybody ever operate a trencher? How'd it go? My yard is also slightly sloped...will that be okay?

 

[Hoober]

I don't have any experience laying a sprinkler system for the first time, but I can speak about having to fix a system after moving into a house where it was put in by the original owner. Please do it right the first time and make sure you have plenty of coverage on those areas you are going to irrigate. I spent a lot of time last year redoing our sprinkler system because the guy from California that had built the house had no idea how to water in order to keep grass and plants alive in Colorado. If you're going to do it yourself, make sure you do it correctly or you'll be spending a lot of time fixing it. And it's a lot easier, I would guess, to lay the pipe right the first time, then have to go back in and adjust the PVC, the risers, and the heads.

 

[arcas]

Check out the forums at http://www.sprinklertalk.com (sorry, I'm doing the quick reply thing so I can't do a real URL here).

edit: huh. guess it auto-parses URLs

In short,

1) Your pressure and volume are fine. Your choice between rotors or sprayers should be based on the shape of your yard. Obviously you don't want to mix sprayers and rotors on the same zone because you'll have uneven water amounts.

2) I'll leave this for the experts.

3) Don't use a trencher. Hire a local irrigation company to use a knife/plow and pull the pipe instead. They'll do it at a reasonable cost and the 'scars' will be almost invisible later that day. Within a week you won't even know it was done.

If you have to bore under a driveway, you'll need to dig a trench for the boring tool. In this case, rent a sod cutter to remove the sod first. Then after the bore is made, replace the sod. Again, almost no damage.

Anyway, check those forums. There's alot of knowledge and experience contained within them.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: arcas
Check out the forums at http://www.sprinklertalk.com

Thanks. I've asked at some other sites and they just say to read that one mega tutorial.

3) Don't use a trencher. Hire a local irrigation company to use a knife/plow and pull the pipe instead. They'll do it at a reasonable cost and the 'scars' will be almost invisible later that day. Within a week you won't even know it was done.

Thanks. I read about those. But I'm doing this as cheaply and quickly as possible while maintaining quality. Our neighbors have been looking at a scragly lawn for years before we moved in so I'm sure they can cope with some trench lines for the month or so it takes for them to get overgrown.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Well, with six of us, we goth the front and back yards done in one day even after sort of a late start.

1. Rotors are fine. Nice thing is not having to have any sprinkler heads in the middle of the lawn for kids or you to stub your toes on.

2. The only difference between cements is color...black, gray, clear. I guess you could use clear if the pipe was going to be exposed and you weren't going to paint it? I went with gray so I could see that I was getting a good application each connection.

3. The trencher is great. It's loud like an old rickety motorcycle and makes a loud clanking sound when the blade starts cutting. There's a half dozen levers, but after a few minutes, you get the hang of it and can dig perfect sized trenches way faster than a team of guys could dig them. It's powered so even going up hill is no problem.

It went pretty smoothly. Project cost me a total of $500 for 2 lawns about 40' x 70'. (the trencher rental would have been another $200+ but it was picked up by my parents as a gift) I don't think I could have gotten a quote for six times that and the end result is exactly as I envisioned. I'm pretty sure I just helped my house appreciate 2 or 3%. All I need to do is finish the electrical...I already have the front zones wired and just need to decide if I link the back to the same timer and run the cable across a very cramped crawlspace or get a separate one.

My advice:
- Definitly rent a trencher if you have anything over a small lawn.
- Knowing your PSI and GPM is necessary for knowing how many sprinkler heads you can fit on each valve/zone.
- Unless you've done it before, you'll probably need to run to Home Depot or a sprinkler supply store at least a few times for miscellaneous parts you'll forget. I did a pretty good job of planning it all out but I did completely forget, amidst figuring out how many T's and L's, to get couplers. Make sure you have an extra person on hand to make runs or buy a few of everything just in case and return what you don't use. Here's the misc PVC pieces I needed: Slip elbows, slip to female threaded elbows, slip elbows with threaded female side outlet (corresponding 1/2 - 3/4 riser), couplers, slip Ts, slip to threaded male adapter (needed for manifolds), end caps, compression coupler. I also needed a bunch of galvanized steel pieces for the connection to the house water, but that will depend on your house and connection etc.

Anyway, there's the update.

 

[KK]

How can you figure out your PSI and GPM.

KK

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: KK
How can you figure out your PSI and GPM.

KK

Buy a $4 pressue gauge from Home Depot for PSI. Some more expensive gauges also do GPM, or you can use the bucket method (time to fill a 5 gal bucket, etc) or do what I did...determine it by the size and type of pipe running into your house.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Oh ya, Hot Dealers will be proud to note I saved 10% ($40) on my initial purchase at Home Depot and also procured, at no charge, a trailer hitch from the rental company. Try that...getting a rental company to let you borrow something.

That's all for now. If anybody is curious about anything about a project like this, feel free to PM me and I'll give you the benefit of my limited experience.

 

[KK]

Where did you tap into your water supply at?

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: KK
Where did you tap into your water supply at?

We have a crawlspace, so our water enters the house sort of like this. Except we had a shutoff valve before it entered the house and a nozzle.

I just shut off the valve, disconnected the nozzle, replaced the nozzle with a 'T' and reconnected the nozzle to the end of the 'T', and then ran a few inches of pipe to an elbow that aimed downward and ran some long pipe to get it level with where I wanted the manifold underground. I have almost no plumbing experience and handled this easily.

Look for a nozzle outside with a round gate valve on the same pipe and that will probably be the main water to the house. Install the irrigation pipe between the shutoff valve and the house somewhere. I sprung for the expensive gate valve.

1. Make sure not to torque anything too hard or you could break something.
2. Any "live" pipe (anything that will constantly have water and pressure in it) needs to be steel, so don't use PVC pipe until after the sprinkler system shutoff valve.