On Apr 12, 11:46 pm, "dean" wrote:

How hard is it to put n those little popup mist
sprayers? Or is it a pro job? Do those things have pumps or work off
regular pressure?

It's not rocket surgery. :-) Did my own sprinklers in the back yard -
twice. First time after we bought the house, second time after we had
the pool built which ripped up the first set of sprinklers. I'm a
software engineer, so planning the system was the big fun for me, the
execution of the plan was kind of an afterthought.

Should work off normal house water pressure, around 40 psi minimum I
think. The little brochures that Toro and Rainbird leave in the racks
at the Borgs will give you all the design details. There will be a
chart in there that tells you how many GPM can be supplied through a
3/4 inch PVC pipe at a given supply pressure. You add up the GPM for
each sprinkler head you use, and the total should not exceed the
supply GPM in order for the pop-up heads to work well. Make sure the
coverage fully overlaps from one head to the next - if the head has a
15 ft radius, the heads should be 15 ft apart. So, you figure how many
circuits you need by dividing stuff up so you don't exceed the maximum
recommended flow at your supply pressure. Since you said you're on a
well, you need to make sure your well pump can keep up.

You can use manual valves for each circuit, or electric valves with a
timer/controller - not very difficult to set that up.

Your trenches should be 6 to 8 inches deep to accommodate the height
of the sprinkler head plus room for connecting to the supply pipe. The
sprinkler heads connect to the supply pipe with a threaded tee fitting
and a cutoff riser. Renting a trencher makes life a lot easier.

The piping work itself is dead simple. Cut the pipe to length - you
can use a hacksaw, or you can buy a sprinkler pipe cutting tool for $8
or so. Slap some primer and glue on the inside of the fitting and the
outside of the pipe. Push and twist a little until the pipe bottoms
out in the fitting. Move on to the next joint.

When you have everything together, take the heads off each sprinkler
circuit and run the water for 5 or 10 seconds, flushes the dirt out of
the pipes, keeps your sprinkler heads from clogging.

Throw the dirt back in the trenches and have a beer, you're done.

Oh, almost forgot. You don't say what part of the country you're in.
If winter freezing is a concern, it might be a good idea to include a
fitting where you can hook up a compressor and blow the water out of
the lines.

Another thought - if you have any landscape plants in the vicinity
that you'd like to put on drip irrigation, it's a good idea to do that
while you have the trenches open. Just one more circuit on your
sprinkler controller.



Jerry