When needed, shrub style sprinklers should only be used in areas well away from sidewalks, patios, and areas where children play. For top-dressing a St. Augustine lawn, use either sandy loam soil or clean free-flowing sand. Still have some questions about sprinklers? Can’t find a performance chart or specification for the sprinkler or emitter? The pop up style sprinkler is ideal for irrigating lawns as the sprinkler head will ‘pop up’ while watering and then return to it’s original position under the level of the turf therefore avoiding tripping or accidentally cutting with the lawnmower blades. Combining bubblers with sprinklers:  Normally bubblers are separated onto a valve circuit of their own so that the watering time can be fine-tuned for exactly how long it takes to flood the desired areas with water. The low pressure sprinklers (or emitters) are installed so that a separate valve turns them on and off, and a special pressure reducing valve is used. If the Saint Augustine grass is growing excessively then remove a couple of minutes from the watering times until the grass grows at a moderate rate while remaining in excellent health. Conversion Formulas    Use no or very little organic material. It is best not to bag grass clippings. The prettiest of these are the “multi-stream rotors” where multiple streams of water rotate over the landscape one after the other. Or at 30 PSI this sprinkler will have a radius of 12 feet and it will consume 2.60 GPM or water flow. The small 3/4″ inlet rotors sold for residential use work best at 25 to 35 foot spacings. for Overgrown Sprinklers & Clean Appearance Adjustment Replacement & Raising Drill Attachment 3.9 out of 5 stars 24 For example, if you have a 30′ radius rotor next to a 15′ radius spray head, how far apart should they be from each other? During the middle of the year, running your sprinkler for about two hours every other day will typically keep your grass … I don't like them because they never seem to water the area closest to the head. A.  Emitters aren’t designed in English units, they are actually metric. Up until the late 1970’s metal (usually brass, sometimes zinc) was the standard material from which almost all sprinklers were made. If you have a well and pump you must have your pump-on setting adjusted to no less than 40 PSI if you plan to use rotors. There are a number of different types of bubblers available, so let’s start by attempting to group them into some loose categories. At any rate, even if you still don’t understand why you use the pressure loss for only a single sprinkler, please trust me, it’s correct! Read the warning below! Hybrids: A few companies manufacture plastic sprinkler bodies which accept brass nozzles, which they claim results in a better water pattern. So study the spray pattern of the streams and examine whether the streams will reach the plants you want to water. Remember that cost is consistent regardless of spacing so it will not save you money. That’s how it works!). OUTDOORGARDENCARE.COM , ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Non-adjustable flood bubblers are just that, non-adjustable. An adjustable flood bubbler is essentially just a small water valve. Frequent mowing at a lower height produces higher quality turfgrass. You will need to obtain these specifications for each of the sprinklers you intend to use. The optimal pressure is easy to determine for rotors using the following rule, keep reading! It is considered one of the best pop up sprinkler heads. Best Lawn Edging for a Legendary Garden 5 Best Gas Hedge Trimmers 4 Best Walk Behind Brush Cutter 3 Best Yard Hydrant. Let’s follow a drop of water through a typical sprinkler system! More on that later. While pressure loss is a perfectly accurate term for the pressure used by sprinkler heads and emitters, operating pressure is more commonly used. When watering a larger area using many bubblers or when using non-adjustable flow bubblers you should place the bubblers on a separate valve zone/circuit consisting only of bubblers. The sprinkler design tutorial gives a more in-depth description of the importance of head-to-head spacing. Just don’t forget to use your “back” button to return here! Best Lawn Edging for a Legendary Garden 5 Best Gas Hedge Trimmers 4 Best Walk Behind Brush Cutter 3 Best Yard Hydrant. It is also best to avoid temperature extremes if possible, especially if freezing temperatures are forecast. Installing bubblers on the same zone wtih spray -type sprinklers is not the most efficient way to go, but as long as it is only 2 or 3 bubblers and they are watering a very small area (not more than 3′ square per bubbler) you can generally play with the bubbler’s flow adjustments and get a reasonably workable watering balance. Unfortunately it almost always is very expensive to fix at that point, costing them far more than it would have if they had taken the time to learn how to do it right the first time. Pop-up style sprinklers are installed below ground. ... First, lawns with Kentucky Bluegrass will be thirstier than those with St. Augustine. So it only passes through one sprinkler head. But you can create two different valve zones and use different sprinklers in each. Grass clippings decompose quickly and return significant amounts of nutrients to the soil. Here are some questions to guide your selection. So one valve might turn on a group of brand X rotors to water a large lawn area. In the real world you will not get that distance (unless you are watering inside a building.) Yet I hear that same blanket statement “switch to rotators and save water” over and over. These watering tips will keep your lawn healthy year round. “Stryker’s Rotor Spacing Rule” states that the spacing in feet between rotor-type sprinklers can’t exceed the pressure in PSI at the rotor. Rain Bird 1804VAN - 4" Professional Pop-up Sprinkler, 3. If I need additional rows of bubblers I put the rows 24″ apart forming a triangle pattern with the bubblers. We broke it down in the simplest way possible. The vast majority of spray type heads and rotary nozzles/rotators are designed to operate most efficiently at 30 PSI. Irrigation Tutorials Home    While St. Augustine grass fungus is treatable, as shown above, the best and most cost-efficient way to keep this grass disease off your lawn is through prevention. Plus it is used by dozens of colleges as an irrigation design text. My experience is that most products sold retail without specifications are poor quality “knock off” products, often made by a “copy cat” production plant that makes knock offs of anything they can find with expired patents that will fit into their molding machines. For purposes of planning your irrigation system, I have found that in most situations flood bubblers will water an area about 3 feet in radius, at a flow of 2 GPM. This way the spray nozzle will clear the top of the grass. Most use interchangeable nozzles installed on the sprinkler which determine the pattern (1/2 circle, full circle, etc.) Rotary/rotator nozzles are more efficient than traditional spray heads because they produce less “mist” that evaporates before it reaches the ground. Then it will proceed through the meter into the house supply pipe and on to the irrigation system connection. For groundcover and shrubs use 6″ and 12″ heads. This can also be controlled by using the radius adjustment feature to reduce the pressure. Begin with a 15 minute watering cycle as the basis, and adjust watering times up or down slightly as required. If y… Rain Bird’s 1802VAN pop-up sprinkler heads are popular and well-liked. For most normal-size city residential yards spray heads or rotary nozzles are usually the better choice. This is why it is so important to calculate what the water pressure will be when designing. You can always come back and change this value later if you want to! If you want to jump ahead and check it out, click here. This website is intended for use by residents of North America only. Plus, it’s possible to adjust the spray distance and the angle. If you are working through the Sprinkler Design Tutorial, enter the sprinkler head operating pressure (or the drip emitter pressure if no sprinklers) on the “Sprinkler Heads” line of the Pressure Loss Table. Most of my commercial clients ask me to use at least a 6″ height, even for lawns. Therefore installation of them requires less pipe and trenching, but they also cost more per sprinkler. Much more information on sprinkler selection is coming later in the tutorial, such as detailed information on the spacing to use between sprinklers and nozzle selection. But that’s laboratory tests, and in the real world a lot of other factors come into play. Hose-end sprinklers: Great for small- to medium-size lawns. When shopping for fixed spray heads, there are two things to consider. In the old days they were used for shrub areas, thus the name. They need between 20 and 30 PSI of water pressure to operate properly. It has relatively good salt tolerance, and certain cultivars have better shade tolerance than other warm-season grass species. Bitter blue has high cold resistance. I haven’t seen any independent lab data that suggests that using a rotator nozzle in place of a rotor head will save water. Stream bubblers spray a narrow stream of water, most often the stream shoots out 2 to 5 feet from the bubbler. For top-dressing a St. Augustine lawn, use either sandy loam soil or clean free-flowing sand. For spray type sprinklers, rotary nozzles, and rotators most designers use an operating pressure of 30 PSI, unless a lack of available pressure forces a lower level. Insert the trowel's spade vertically into the ground to cut through the sod. See reviews, photos, directions, phone numbers and more for the best Sprinklers-Garden & Lawn, Installation & Service in Saint Augustine, FL. Manufacturer’s literature and packaging tends to wildly exaggerate the maximum spacing of rotors. If they don’t work out well, then erase them from your plan and try rotary nozzles. There are many different schools of thought on this, but my general recommendation is to split the difference. Advantages St. Augustinegrass produces a green to blue-green dense turf that is well adapted to most soils and climatic regions in Florida. Some emitters are “pressure compensating” which means they should put out approximately the same amount of water over a wide range of inlet pressures. And a 3rd valve might turn on a drip system using brand Z emitters that waters some shrubs. Irrigation Glossary    Is the edge of the area to be watered curved. For that reason I do not recommend any model of 2″ pop-up, you will get dry spots in the lawn. There are many different types, so you can choose the one that fits your lawn best. So don’t agonize over it. St. Augustine grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum) is a warm weather, subtropical grass which can be found throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, western and southern Africa, the Caribbean, the Hawaiian Islands, and Oceania. First our water droplet will travel through a pipe from the water company to your water meter. (O.K. Spray heads are less expensive to buy, but they require more pipe, trenches and valves to install. Mowing a St Augustine lawn below 3” exposes the stems, roots and soil to the hot Florida sun – and mowing above 3” protects the stems, roots and soil from the hot Florida sun. There is a lot of competition in the sprinkler business to see who can get the greatest radius from a rotor-type sprinkler. A good idea is to strap them to a large post, like a 4″x4″ wood or plastic fence post, to hold them stable and make them easy to see. The primary reason for this change in materials is cost; machined metal parts are enormously expensive in comparison to injection molded plastic. Pop-up style sprinklers are available in a variety of heights, generally 2″, 3″ , 4″ 6″ and 12″ are the common heights. Yes, the rotor would overspray the spray head by a considerable distance. When using rotors or rotary nozzles there is less pipe and trenches, but the rotors themselves cost more. Most manufacturers also make these specifications available on their web sites. If you want to space rotors 40′ apart you will need 40 PSI for the sprinkler head pressure. And loamy or sandy soil will absorb water faster than clay. The best time to water grass in Texas is between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. The lower the mowing height, the more frequently you will need to mow. There are a variety of lawn sprinkler types available. The size of your yard and the area to be watered will play a large role in finding the best lawn sprinklers and best sprinkler heads for you, as will how involved you want to be in the process. These are much more heat and drought tolerant than the northern grasses mentioned above. I have noticed recently that my grass has been looking a little dry and my live-in girlfriend said that she thinks that something might be wrong with the sprinklers. They should be clearly visible. Some specialty patterns are available for long, narrow areas. 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