How to set up an automatic irrigation system for watering?

[KSB]

Hi I’m an absolute Newbie at this and keen to do a DIY set up of an automatic irrigation system for watering grass,gardenBeds & Pots some on the deck. Will appreciate help from the community starting from absolute basics. This is for a new Build where the wooden deck goes in Next week and grab the following week. 

cheers

 

[KSB]

Many thanks EricL I have three taps with decent water flow but as I put in the WiFi water controller dropped the pressure significantly  I’ve drawn out a plan and will post it here shortly for your advise or from others. 

[KSB]

That’s some great info mate Pretty much what I was looking for. I’ve drawn up a plan and will post it here in a cpl o hours for comments and recommendations. Never really thought of using the natural bend of the pipe I think it’s a great idea cause besides saving on costs will probably maintain better water pressure too as a circular bend will be better than a elbow 😁

[KSB]

 

 

[R4addZ]

Hi @KSB 

Not sure who you were replying to but if you are short on time to get these in before it is too late, use as large bore pipes as you are comfortable with installing. If you need to just use retic pipes rather than put in bigger pipes (stormwater type) that give you future choices then yes 20mm at least and poly pipe will do as it is the easiest for you to work with. PVC pipe (like conduit pipe) is more robust but harder for an amatuer to work with.

One thing people also forget is to run a conduit from below where the reticulation controller is to be installed to where the valves will be. You should use a circular box with one outlet which is screwed to the wall with the one outlet connected to the conduit going to the valves. Never use a right angle bend on a run like this, use a swept bend (with a radius that makes it easy to pull cables through) the circular box is screwed to the wall and the back of it is drilled through into the cavity to allow the cables to get to the controller. This needs to be done before any  paving is done as the controller is often located near the power board to reduce costs and that is often somewhere paths run next to!

[KSB]

Many thanks @R4addZ  for those points.

[KSB]

@R4addZ @J-P @EricL Could someone look at this diagram and suggest How I decide how many pop up sprinklers or drip or other watering sprinklers can be added on a particular connection. I’ve calculated the flow per hour but not really sure how many I should add per connection? would it be advisable to add a 2 zone controller to one tap or use different taps and keep zones independent? 

[J-P]

I am still not clear where you are planning what. Sorry about that. This page contains very good guides that I read thru

https://popeirrigation.com.au/diy-guides/

You can Max put 5-6 pop up without losing presssure. That will line one with 19mm pipe. Place sprinkler 3m apart to get max coverage.

Another line with 13 mm (you can take off with 19mm from tap and later on transfer to 13) with jets. You can have 10-12 half circle jets.

I got myself 4 way splitter from one pipe. You would need individual tap controls for each line and that works out costly. So mine is still manual. You can always upgrade this later.

[MitchellMc]

Hi @KSB,

The Pope irrigation site @J-P linked to is an excellent resource for mapping out coverage and the number of pop-ups you can run on one line or tap. I've include their Pop-up litres per minute below. 

Say you had a flow of 20L/minute from your tap. You could run two Master Full Circle pop-ups at full capacity.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

[R4addZ]

Hi @KSB 

It is easy enough to work this out with an online planner as many here have suggested,  but one word of caution. You may have checked the flow rate at the tap but if you are in a new developing suburb, the flow rate you have now may not be the flow rate available when all the new homes start watering on the same day as you. May I suggest that if the planner says you can, for example, run 6, you only run 5 to allow for future drops in pressure.

[KSB]

Ahh that's a great Point @R4addZ worth considering didn’t think of that. We sure are in a new development and there’s quite a few new houses about to start construction and some are already under construction. In that case maybe best to wait a bit until some more houses come up. I checked water pressure with the WiFi water controller and it seems to drop significantly with more houses around will surely affect it further. Thanks for all the points much appreciated.