Pop up sprinkler systems

[geeks]

Anyone installed one at all?

Looking at getting one installed as it will save a lot of messing around manually moving the sprinkler around the lawn and also have recently started working with Home Assistant I like the idea of automating this as well. Most of the kit seems pretty straight forward and surprisingly affordable as well.

Thoughts?

[biggiles]

I have one. Mixture of Rainbird and Hunter equipment, a single pop-up can do up to 2000 litres per hour. I looked at Pi/HA for controlling it, but I found it easier to have a simple Hunter multi-zone controller.

Most of the effort is planning and laying the pipework, not the controller setup. There are lots of good online guides/calculators to laying out the sprinklers.

[dhutch]

Why does the lawn need so much watering? Are you on particularly challenging soil type?

Have you done the obvious things of deep aeration/decompaction and seeding with a drought tolerant seed mix?


Big rainwater collection and storage tanks to go with?

[geeks]

Mainly because it hasn’t rained here since March

I am working through getting the grass in shape but it need water and we have particularly well draining soil (farmland surrounds us)

Plus I love a gadget and this is a gadget at its core

[Nick_MSM]

Watching this. I am looking at recommissioning our well, and sprinklers would be ideal. Spend hours a week watering!

[Evanivitch]

geeks said:

Mainly because it hasn’t rained here since March

I am working through getting the grass in shape but it need water and we have particularly well draining soil (farmland surrounds us)

Plus I love a gadget and this is a gadget at its core

I'm not sure getting a sprinkler is the long term solution to "no rain".

[geeks]

Evanivitch said:

geeks said:

Mainly because it hasn’t rained here since March

I am working through getting the grass in shape but it need water and we have particularly well draining soil (farmland surrounds us)

Plus I love a gadget and this is a gadget at its core

I'm not sure getting a sprinkler is the long term solution to "no rain".

I’ve already tried a rain dance. What more do you want?

[Evanivitch]

geeks said:

Evanivitch said:

geeks said:

Mainly because it hasn’t rained here since March

I am working through getting the grass in shape but it need water and we have particularly well draining soil (farmland surrounds us)

Plus I love a gadget and this is a gadget at its core

I'm not sure getting a sprinkler is the long term solution to "no rain".

I’ve already tried a rain dance. What more do you want?

Dig up the lawn, put a massive rainwater tank under it (5000 litres maybe), then install the sprinkler...

[ukwill]

I have hunter pgp ultra’s dotted around.

It’s all a case of figuring out how much flow rate and psi you have available as that determines how many you can run per zone, and what nozzles to use.

Once you’ve got that info it’s just a case or running in the pipework. I used 20mm ldpe pipe and relevant fittings. I managed to use existing flower beds for the runs so didn’t need to trench through the lawn.

[s p a c e m a n]

If I did it again I would try to plan it so that they all have a 360 degree spread. The ones I've got set up to flick back on themselves need playing with at the start of every season because either the spring has weakened or something has seized/got caked in mud. The ones that are left to spin all the way round just work every time

[geeks]

Evanivitch said:

geeks said:

Evanivitch said:

geeks said:

Mainly because it hasn’t rained here since March

I am working through getting the grass in shape but it need water and we have particularly well draining soil (farmland surrounds us)

Plus I love a gadget and this is a gadget at its core

I'm not sure getting a sprinkler is the long term solution to "no rain".

I’ve already tried a rain dance. What more do you want?

Dig up the lawn, put a massive rainwater tank under it (5000 litres maybe), then install the sprinkler...

We already have about 2000 litres of storage that is beginning to run dry as well. I do appreciate what you are saying however in my defence I am on a separate supply so there isn't an issue of usage for us. As it was explained to me we share a supply to the farm and its fed by a separate water source, its never been clear to me exactly what that means but I do know that means I am billed by the council for my supply (waste is on a septic tank).

[POIDH]

If you're in the SE of England I would look up climate risk maps and start planning Spanish paved and grit surfaces, desert plants and similar.

[Danns]

After designing / purchasing everything 2 years ago, I’m determined 2025 will be the year I install mine.

Had a big old water leak on the supply to house after purchase of all of the kit - went on for over a year which dropped pressure / flow rate from the usual 5.5 bar / 30 something litres a minute to something completely unsuitable. Worth checking before you start.

Is a 6 zone system, some 200m of 20mm mdpe, and 8 lawn sprinklers (fancy Hunter stainless ones) / many many smaller pop ups for the beds inc the comical 300mm high ones.

Built an 8 channel controller using Alexa enabled WiFi relay boards so will all be controlled using that.
Plan to use one channel as an interrupt incase WiFi signal is lost / drops out and the routine to turn a zone off doesn’t run (delay off timer would also work now I think about it)

Took a bit of testing / measuring and designing to figure out exactly what I needed / where everything needs to go/ where overlaps are etc. You can fit a lot of the smaller pop ups on one zone, but I found the higher flow rate lawn sprinklers drop their throw distance quite quickly if you add more than 2 to a zone (messed around with all of the different nozzles to get a balance)

Worth looking at the Hunter matched precipitation heads when doing boarders / anything rectangular instead of an arc.

Planning on using the pop ups for the beds to cool the garden during proper hot days.











Testing..

Edited by Danns on Wednesday 14th May 08:24