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?Any way to INCREASE water pressure to heads?

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TobyKanobe

New Member

Posts: 2

1

Saturday, April 9th 2005, 12:06pm

?Any way to INCREASE water pressure to heads?

My father was a landscape contractor so I do all my own landscaping including sprinklers now as an adult thanks to his instruction but I am running into a dilema in my new lawn system I just put in. I don't have enough pressure to make my sprinklers work and I have no time (Im in a law enforcement academy and only home on the weekends)and no way of digging up the trenches and adding more valves to try to increase the pressure by reducing heads to each valve. I was wondering if there is any device on the market that will increase water pressure to something like a what I'm talking about. A pump or something? If there isn't I will have to sell my house with a nice area all prepared for a lawn, but no lawn to go with it! Help! Thanks ahead of time....

TobyKanobe

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

2

Saturday, April 9th 2005, 3:47pm

What are the heads? What size nozzles? If you did a sprinkler installation without enough planning you may have other, more serious problems.

TobyKanobe

New Member

Posts: 2

3

Saturday, April 9th 2005, 7:00pm

They are Toro 570s. Lack of planning is my problem, I honestly thought I had plenty of pressure. The system is using 3/4 inch PVC and the valves are Rainbird.

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

4

Sunday, April 10th 2005, 8:25am

Is there a proper backflow preventer in the system plumbing? A PVB or RPZ is wanted, to prevent the return of toxic water into the home. On flat ground, a PVB (pressure vacuum breaker), mounted at least a foot higher than any of the sprinkler heads it feeds, will do the job with the least loss of pressure. You want the plumbing to be right, especially if you're going to sell the house, because you probably don't want to sell it 'as is' unless you don't care how prospective buyers will consider the implied flaws. Once you get the plumbing right, you might post information about the water pressure you have, at no flow, and when a zone is turned on. You can also get a flow rate from the water meter, when the zone(s) are running. There is a 'fix' for you.

RidgeRun05

Supreme Member

Posts: 314

Location: USA

5

Sunday, April 10th 2005, 11:05am

Toby,
You can install a booster pump for your sprinkler system which will boost the pressure thus hopefully solving your problem. What is your static (standing) water pressure? How many sprinkler heads to a zone, and how many heads on a zone? You may also have your city municipality come out and adjust your water pressure, or if you have well water, have the well company come out and see if your well pump is adjustable. Hope this helps.
Tony Posey
Ridge Run Landscapes

dave37

New Member

Posts: 3

6

Thursday, June 16th 2005, 2:02am

My friend and I have just finished hooking up a 5 zone sprinkler system at my house. My friend has put in a few systems but I have not. We used 1 inch pipe from the end of my house to the other and then switched to 3/4 inch from the edge of my house to the road, about another 75 to 90 feet. I have city water and what I thought was good pressure until we turned the system on. We had a mix of rotor heads and some of the small toro 570's. The bigger heads did not even work so we replaced them with the 570's. I think that we would be better served to get a booster pump and put the rotary heads back on, but we (I) don't know enough about the pump specifics. I know this is loaded question, but does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

RidgeRun05

Supreme Member

Posts: 314

Location: USA

7

Friday, June 17th 2005, 6:52am

Why did you switch to a smaller diameter pipe halfway down the run? What is your static water pressure at the Point of Connection for the system? Generally, but not always, when you are on Municipal water you should have more than enough pressure for a sprinkler system. This is why it is very important to do your homework prior to installation, so you can figure out pipe sizes, the correct sprinkler heads to use, and the amount of heads per zone. A booster pump is probably only going to solve your problems temporarily. Until we know what your water pressure and GPM are though, its hard to say.

EDIT: On a side note, how many sprinkler heads do you have on a zone? Also, generally you want to seperate heads with different flow rates into different zones - IE. seperate large turf rotors from the smallers 570's.
Tony Posey
Ridge Run Landscapes

dave37

New Member

Posts: 3

8

Friday, June 17th 2005, 1:37pm

My static water pressure is about 77psi and I get approx. 8 gallons per minute. I switched the pipe size to try to increase pressure at the end of the runs. I figured that I have about 250 of pipe on one run, one inch for about 120 feet and the rest (where the heads are located are 3/4 inch pipe. On that zone we had about 5 570's. A couple of the heads at the end of the zone weren't even popping up. We have added another zone and decreased the number of heads per zone. One of the zones has only a couple of rotor heads and seems to be working well. Thanks for the tip about separating head types. Any other suggestions. Should I have not switched the pipe diameter toward the end of the runs? Thanks again for your patience.

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

9

Friday, June 17th 2005, 2:18pm

Pipe sizing doesn't work that way. Reducing pipe size makes a given water flow move faster, and faster means more friction, and more pressure lost from friction. Find some hydraulic charts to help you figure this out.
http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/sprinkler09.htm

RidgeRun05

Supreme Member

Posts: 314

Location: USA

10

Friday, June 17th 2005, 8:46pm

Exactly, your actually causing more problems by have the smaller pipe with the heads on it than good. The friction loss alone is causing a significant drop in PSI. Also, did you flush the lines out before you installed the sprinkler heads. Something to think about just in case you didn't, sometimes quite a bit of dirt can get into the lines during installation. Your solution is probably one that you're not going to want to hear, but I would suggest changing the pipe size.
Tony Posey
Ridge Run Landscapes
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