How to install a lawn irrigation system attached to recycled water?

[TimGeo]

Well, It's been a while since I've been in the workshop, not much has been going on in the landscaping department, the only thing I've really done since last time was renovating my front lawn, and in the next week or so I'll be doing to nature strip and if I have enough time in the season I'll do the back yard, including some levelling and any modifications.

Today's plan is to figure out irrigation for the lawns, and eventually the whole property, in which case I plan to have stuff set up so that when I'm ready i can just rig up the next zone and plug it in to the existing box which would have solenoids ready to go.

As this will be my first time ever setting up irrigation, I've got a few questions and some confusion about parts.

I did a pressure test on my taps a while ago which was around 400kpa (60psi) and filled a 20L bucket in approx 30 seconds. However this was a while ago and now that I think about it, I did this on the taps at the rear of the house, where I probably should have done it at the main tap, so I'll be doing the test again before anything cos I feel that it might be a bit low.

To keep it simple I'm just starting with the nature strip then I'll move onto the larger front yard etc. But I'm trying to understand which pipe is the must suitable throughout the system. I will be teeing off the recycled water (Purple PEX SharkBite pipe) and I will likely need a filter as I often find my hose triggers getting clogged with unusual debris and have to replace them every few years.

As for the pipe from the tee, I often see that black with blue striped pipe which looks quite beefy that runs from the supply to the solenoids but I'm not clear on diameter, perhaps I can get some advice on pipe selection.

As for running the sprinkler system for the nature strip, I've seen pipe run directly into sprinklers in line, I've also seen setups with an articulated riser. I guess for the extra cost of adding more potential places to leak it's not worth adding the articulated risers?

I'll post back with my water pressure and LPM but if I could get some information to make selecting the right products easier that would be a great help! 

I can only take a guess and say to run 19mm or 25mm poly pipe from the supply to the solenoid bank, then run 19mm poly throughout the system and whatever sprinklers I decide to use which should match the pipe?

thanks

[EricL]

Hi @TimGeo 

That is a really comprehensive plan you've got there. Please make sure to document everything as it would make for a great guide on installing lawn irrigation systems.

Please keep us updated with your progress, we look forward to seeing the more of the irrigation installation. 

Eric

[TimGeo]

Here's an update for today,

Laid out the remainder of the components for the boxes, the outlet caps are temporary and will go once I get the remainder of the solenoids.

I gave every thread some teflon tape so I was certain there would be no leaks, spoiler alert, of course there were some leaks!😅 at least they were only leaking from the caps and not the connections!

From the check valve I installed an inline filter. As there's always new works going on in estates nearby, I've found that debris always finds its way into the hoses so if I want to ensure the sprinkler heads never clog up I need one, and then finally two 4-way connectors for a future potential of 8 zones for the property, now if I ever want to add a zone, I just need to screw on a solenoid in place of and end cap and trench where i need to add a pipe

Finally, positioning and cutting the boxes and surrounding them half way with rocks to lock them in place and add some drainage 

 

All backfilled for the time being to keep it tidy

Next update will be trenching the front lawn and connecting up to the first solenoid and figuring out where to run the electrical conduit.

I was wondering how hard will it be to drill a hole in the brick veneer and feed the cable down from the roof space to avoid having a conduit run up the outside of the wall?

[JacobZ]

Hi @TimGeo,

Nice work; your irrigation system is coming along nicely. The valve boxes will blend in nicely once you have some plants or ground cover.

You will have to confirm with your electrician that this is a suitable way to run power to your valve boxes, but I can't see any reason it wouldn't be ok as long as code is followed.

Drilling through the brick veneer won't be too hard. You'll need a rotary hammer drill and an appropriately sized SDS bit with enough length to penetrate the whole way through the brick. Assuming you have a double brick home, there will then be a cavity between the two brick walls that you can run a Fibreglass Fishing Tape through to pull your cable through.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Jacob

[TimGeo]

my lawn irrigation is now complete! albeit with a bunch of missing kikuyu, which I'm confident will be all filled in pretty quickly now that the pop up irrigation works very well and reaches 100% coverage. I'll probably do a reno on the lawn and use the scarifier, I've watch a video where the clippings were used to fill in the bare spots, I would just have to treat them the same as seed and water frequently to help them establish, as long as the clippings have some fragments of roots, I'll be fine!

Now on to the pics, I started on the footpath side, I thought this would be the most tricky part, especially as I needed to chisel off bits of paving that were getting in the way of the sprinkler bodies, I did my best to preserve the pieces of turf I dug out however it wasn't very successful as I'm only one person and the digging took me the better part of 4 days to complete the entire perimeter, Monday was 36° and was definitely not my friend and I needed to dig approximately 200mm deep all the way around due to the size of the sprinkler bodies.

 

   

by day 3 I had completed 2/3 of the run and needed to do some future proofing, I had already planned the valve boxes to run 8 zones, with 1 zone being the lawn and another zone being the front garden bed, I cut 6 poly tubes and run them to a dead end behind the side gate, wrapped them up so they didn't fill with dirt and buried them, (this way when the time comes to finish the rest of the zones, I don't have to disrupt the ground again and destroy the lawn, I just slap on a barbed connector to each pipe and continue the run)

  

I used an auger bit for my drill and dug a hole underneath the hedges so I could run some poly pipe from the boxes to each of the 6 pipes with a 90 barb connector and clamped them down, I also cut the pipe for the lawn irrigation and put a barbed tee which I did after the photo.

by the end of day 4 I finished the last section of trenching, made the final connections to the solenoid boxes, I came up with the idea to cut the pipes and rotate them to change the direction of the curve, this helped line them up straight where the solenoids would be placed and also prevent the pipe from kinking by applying to much pressure against the curve, using a barbed connector and some steel snap clamps, the area was covered up, never to be seen again!

Finally the system was flushed before attaching the sprinkler heads for it's very first run! I can't upload a video, but it's exactly as the product is advertised, these heads are so simple to adjust and work flawlessly, and I absolutely love the way they function! twist the base to adjust the degrees of coverage from 0 to 270 and there's a tiny screw on top to adjust the distance!

Things left to do to:

-Purchase and install a 8 zone wifi irrigation controller

-install conduit and run the wires to the unit

-Install the remainder of the solenoids

The remaining zones will likely happen later as I still have some more work to do before i'm able to add them, i'm just going to run the lawn manually from the ball valve until I get the controller installed. until then keep an eye out for my next project!

[JacobZ]

Hi @TimGeo,

I've also recently watched a video where Kikuyu sprigs were used in lieu of seeds. It's an interesting concept that I wasn't aware of. I'd love to hear how it went a bit further down the line.

I'm glad the hard work is done, and you can move on to the final stages.

I'm sure you're looking forward to the fantastic lawn your irrigation system will create.

Thank you for sharing the update.

Jacob