When avoiding sprinkler repair Oviedo FL, among the most critical measures is starting with a well-designed sprinkler system. Designing a suitable irrigation system is and starts with sprinkler head layout.
Landscape Watering Needs
All the sprinkler heads must be correctly and strategically put to be able to reach what’s known within the irrigation contractor world as “uniformity of precipitation”, or in more technical terms Distribution Uniformity Lowest Quarter.
Matched precipitation essentially means reaching an even distribution of water for similar landscape requirements. Even in just one yard in Oviedo FL you will areas with different watering requirements. For example, turf versus established shrubs or grass in shade versus full sun areas.
You don’t want underwatered spots and also you also don’t want overwatered spots.
There are many variables which go into planning and executing your lawn irrigation head layout. You must think about things like the type of grass (St Augustine versus Bahia), hills versus flat terrain, size (square footage) as well as time of day you’ll most probably be watering.
Spray and rotor heads heads
Rotor heads rotate or move and cover a bigger place of turf or landscape. Spray heads are fixed or don’t move and are used largely to cover smaller areas of your own yard and landscape.
The rotor throws water a distance of about 30-40 feet depending on pressure as well as nozzle size. Spray heads can project water of distances between 15 and 4 foot radius.
Rotors are typically used in larger turf areas and sprays are used more in small turf areas and shrub or flower beds. Drip or low volume irrigation is a great choice for drip and smaller grass and an alternative for shrub / flower beds.
Head to Head Coverage
One primary key to becoming even or matched precipitation across your yard & landscape will be to have what is known as “head to head coverage”. Head to head coverage is just putting the sprinkler heads where the end of the water stream of a single head reaches the next sprinkler head. The chief explanation for this is since there’s a difference in the amount of water thrown closer in the sprinkler head than at the end of the stream or spray.
In case your sprinkler heads are put where in fact the end of a single stream hits or touches the end of the following sprinkler head’s water, then this is not head to head coverage…in fact they are “double spaced”.
Using Fixed Spray Heads
To space or layout the sprinkler heads and reach head to head coverage you’ll have to understand the radius distance in feet of every rotor or spray head you’ll use for a specified place or zone.
For instance, let’s say you got a big front yard area and you decide it is best watered with rotors. According to the dimensions of the area, you space the rotors thirty feet apart from each other and this can give you head to head coverage.
If you’re using spray heads to do a smaller grass region, you then will have to determine the nozzle size that you will use on each spray. For example, if using 15H (fifteen foot radius, 180 degree throw), then the spray heads ought to be laid out fifteen feet apart. Looks fairly easy, right? Rainbird, Hunter, and Toro all have what are known as “matched precipitation nozzles.”
This means that whether you’re using a 15 half or a 10 half, the amount of water dispersed per square foot will be precisely the same. With rotor heads you’ll have to set up the appropriate sized gallons per minute nozzle in the head.
Lawn Irrigation Layout Example
In case you had a perfect 60′ X 60′ square yard to water then you definitely could do this one of two ways. The first would be to use 5 rotors.
One head at all the four corners and one in the dead center. The rotors in the corners could use 1.5 GPM (gallons per minute) nozzles, as the one at the center of the yard uses a 6.0 GPM nozzle. As a full 360-degree pattern is rotated by the rotor in the center, the heads in the corners would just rotate 90 degrees. This would be relatively uniform precipitation.
Another means to do exactly the same square footage of yard is always to use 9 rotors, all spaced 30 feet apart. Basically 3 rotors over the very front part of the square (at thirty, zero, and sixty feet), 3 over the center, and 3 rotors over the margin of the square.
The 4 heads in the corners rotating 90 degrees could use 1.5 GPM nozzles, the four facility heads over the four sides of the margin in the 30 foot mark would rotate 180 degrees and may be 3.0 GPM nozzles. And the final head which is dead center of the yard could be a 6.0 GPM nozzle and rotate 360 degrees.
Watering Turf Versus Shrubs
What you are watering maters greatly when discussing sprinkler repair near Orlando FL. A side note, from all of the years of my own field experience I’ve learned that matched or even precipitation is critical for maintaining St Augustine turf, but you have some room for error when coping with plants, shrubs, and flower beds. An overwatered or underwatered spot will reveal itself a lot easier on grass then in bedding plants.
I feel the chief explanation for this is the differences within the root system between shrubs and lawns. Of course, sprinkler head layout is just portion of a suitable landscape irrigation system design. However, an extremely important one.
Irrigation Pipe Sizing
Correct pipe sizing is another determinate in equalizing pressure which also affects water distribution. Heads need equal pressure at their base to put out water at equal GPM. This pressure loss can be due to friction loss from using smaller than needed pipe for the required GPM. Make sure to use a pipe sizing chart when laying out your irrigation system to avoid any unnecessary sprinkler repair Oviedo.