Underground Sprinklers

[Mike Oxlong]

It's time to finally get my yard in shape and do all the landscaping. We haven't laid the sod yet so I was thinking about putting in an underground sprinkler system ahead of time.

I am considering taking it on myself but would love the advice of the CP crew.

For anyone who has installed their own system:
How tough was it?
Any good books or resources on how to do it?
Where did you buy the hardware? (I went to Home Depot yesterday and they were less than helpful. I am fairly sure they don't sell the systems)

Any other advice, experiences, ideas, thoughts would all be helpful. I am tired of living in dirt and want to get this done ASAP so I can lay some sod.

Thanks!

[Eric Vail]

My brother-in-law did this using the stuff and Home Depot. I believe they will help you design a plan and everything. He is pretty handy and does lots of plumming and construction and he had a very difficult time getting it to work adequately. His water pressure was a big problem. I thought about doing it as well, but after seeing the trouble he went through, I decided it wasn't so difficult to set out a sprinkler now and then.

[Jayems]

I used to do that for a summer job... for like 4 summers. In fact, I still do it once a week for some extra cash on my days off from my regular job.

1) Do not buy your parts from Home Depot. Go to Regency Irrigation or Emco. Much cheaper (potentially, see #3) and better quality.

2) You should have a general idea of how it works before you do it. Most people I've had to go out and service are people who tried to do it themselves, monumentally screwed it up, then had to pay to get it done anyways.

3) Try and get contractor pricing through Emco or Regency. Not sure if you can get it, but try.

I have to run right now.... But ask some more specific questions and I'll try and get back to it when I get back to the office.

[DESS]

I really like having a green lawn and I find fertilizing a few times a year and setting out the sprinklers now and then through the summer is all that is needed. Underground sprinklers seem like a hassle and a waste of money IMO. Put that money into a few trees or something instead. Can never have too many trees.

[Madman]

Originally Posted by DESS

I really like having a green lawn and I find fertilizing a few times a year and setting out the sprinklers now and then through the summer is all that is needed. Underground sprinklers seem like a hassle and a waste of money IMO. Put that money into a few trees or something instead. Can never have too many trees.

At the risk of starting a useless BAN UNDERGROUND SPRINKLERS! debate, I will disagree with you.

Underground sprinklers are actually one of quickest return on investments you can do to your house.

Over watering, watering at the wrong time of day, watering when you don't need it, (due to weather), etc. etc. are all prime examples why underground sprinklers are worth every penny.

[JohnnyO]

This is super easy to do. I did it myself 2 summers ago. The shape of my yard was annoying for manual watering.

Go to this website and map out your yard. they will email you a plan for you to follow. Its over kill but basically gives you an idea what to do. http://www.orbitirrigation.com/

The hardest part may be digging the trench for the lines. The pros have a pushing tool. If you dig you only have to dig a 4" wide trench 8" or so deep.

You need a seperate water line to the outside of your house, put a check valve on it inside the house and a shut off valve as well. The water line from the house runs into these valves/manafold, which open and close and allows for watering the zone. Run a line from the valve to each zone you want watered and attach the sprinkler head x feet apart. 4-8 heads per line/zone dependent on pressure. Hook up the timer with a rain sensor and you are golden.

Smile every morning when you get in your car for work having done your watering while you were eating your cereal.

[Tiger]

can this be done cheaply by putting soaker hoses underground?

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Tiger

can this be done cheaply by putting soaker hoses underground?

do not put soaker hose underground otherwise you will have stripes up and down your lawn. with regards to the OPI work for an underground wholesaler and retail is a large part of my business.

We are the distributor for Hunter Industries. If anyone has any questions regarding Underground irrigation I would be more than willing to offer advice, suggestions or answer any questions.

Cheers

Oh i should mention contrary to everyone's belief it's not pressure you are worried about. Irrigation will operate on 30psi it's flow (how many Gallons per Minute) you are concerned with. Each sprinkler uses X many GPM's and certain pipe sizes can only handle X gpm. If you only have 8 GPM trying to run 10 GPM on the zone won't work and thus looks like you don't have enough pressure.

[DESS]

Originally Posted by Madman

At the risk of starting a useless BAN UNDERGROUND SPRINKLERS! debate, I will disagree with you.

Underground sprinklers are actually one of quickest return on investments you can do to your house.

Over watering, watering at the wrong time of day, watering when you don't need it, (due to weather), etc. etc. are all prime examples why underground sprinklers are worth every penny.

Well I suppose I don't even know how much they cost. What kind of range is a guy looking at for an average-size property?

[Jayems]

I'd highly recommend calling Alberta One Call before doing any digging. Even if you're only going a foot or so underground, its nice to know where they are, ESPECIALLY if you're using ditch witch or other machinery to pull lines.

Never mix and match rotors with pops. They water very differently and require separate watering times to be effective. Putting two separate types of heads on the same zone won't utilize the system. Rotors require 15-20+ minutes whereas pops only need 10-12 mins (depending).

Flower beds you can do with micro irrigation. I'd reccomend runnign a 3/4 pipe behind all your flowers or other trees etc and then plug in micros off that pipe. Or, you can just put heads in the grass and spray the flower garden. You should use a seperate zone for micros/flower beds because they too require a lot less time to water. So if you put it on a grass zone, you'd either over water the flower beds to adequately water the grass, or underwater the grass to adequately water the flowers.

Contrary to some belief, you only need to water with sprinklers about 3 times per week. The frisbee test is a good way to figure it out.

Don't be lazy and do it right the first time. Put the head properly in the ground, straight, not crooked, and for the love of god, put it just a tad lower than level with the grass. You'll bust head after head with your mower if you get lazy.

hmm.. what else

4" pops are what I'm used to. I'm partial to Irritrol, simply because that's all my boss ever used. Although I did service, so I've seen every type of system imaginable.

You can put some 6" or 12" for special areas, usually used in gardens etc.

[Ice]

I had to replace all the underground irrigation and get a new timer, it was the least expensive part of our landscape renovation. I'd rather pay a little money to know it was done right. I was actually shocked at how inexpensive it was. Maybe it was because we had our yard taken down to dirt so they didn't have to worry about damaging existing landscape.

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Jayems

I'd highly recommend calling Alberta One Call before doing any digging. Even if you're only going a foot or so underground, its nice to know where they are, ESPECIALLY if you're using ditch witch or other machinery to pull lines.

Never mix and match rotors with pops. They water very differently and require separate watering times to be effective. Putting two separate types of heads on the same zone won't utilize the system. Rotors require 15-20+ minutes whereas pops only need 10-12 mins (depending).

Flower beds you can do with micro irrigation. I'd reccomend runnign a 3/4 pipe behind all your flowers or other trees etc and then plug in micros off that pipe. Or, you can just put heads in the grass and spray the flower garden. You should use a seperate zone for micros/flower beds because they too require a lot less time to water. So if you put it on a grass zone, you'd either over water the flower beds to adequately water the grass, or underwater the grass to adequately water the flowers.

Contrary to some belief, you only need to water with sprinklers about 3 times per week. The frisbee test is a good way to figure it out.

Don't be lazy and do it right the first time. Put the head properly in the ground, straight, not crooked, and for the love of god, put it just a tad lower than level with the grass. You'll bust head after head with your mower if you get lazy.

hmm.. what else

4" pops are what I'm used to. I'm partial to Irritrol, simply because that's all my boss ever used. Although I did service, so I've seen every type of system imaginable.

You can put some 6" or 12" for special areas, usually used in gardens etc.

Good information, but I would make a slight adjusment to your watering schedule depending on your precipitation rate. Rotors I always recommend running a base schedule of an hour each time 3 times a week. Reason being that you basically want to put an inch net of water on your lawn per week (at least here in southern Alberta territory). Rotors have a general precip. rate of about .4 inches per hour. Factor in an efficiency of about 80% and you are wanting to put on about an inch and a quarter actually. Spray heads I recommend about 20 minutes three times per week.

Of course this all depends on your exposures, soil conditions, irrigation efficiency, average precip, etc.

[Titan]

I put mine in with friends a couple years ago. The best use of a day yet. Other than the odd adjustment it just works. I water at 3 am and it is awesome.

I would put extra consideration into flower beds. I would run a line like Jayems said and then you can adapt that with micros. I have four micros on my deck for potted plants too. Flowers need to be watered more often but for less time so a separate line is nice. Do it before the lawn is down and you should not need the puller or anything. Very easy. It is better to put in too many than not enough.

[Shazam]

The problem with underground sprinklers is that they're scheming, and one day they'll rise up and take over your house.

But seriously, make sure you get them blown out at the end of the season!