Any hope for this zone without physically moving sprinkler heads?

So I mentioned in another post that I am not impressed with whoever installed my sprinkler system. I just found another issue that I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do much with without physically adding or moving sprinkler heads. One of my side yards is about 15 feet wide with a slight slope away from the house. Unfortunately the only sprinkler heads for this zone are spray nozzles at the bottom of the slope.

I did my catch cup test today and at the bottom of the slope near the spray heads I got about 1.2 inches per hour. I’m the middle of the slope I was seeing .76 inches per hour and at the top of the slope some areas got almost nothing and others got some water, but were under .5 inches per hour.

If I try to water the zone based on the needs of the grass at the top I’m going to seriously overwater the bottom. Not to mention that the slope will make it worse as water runs down.

Do I have any options here other than adding more heads at the top of the slope or moving the existing heads to the top?

I personally don’t think so, those heads need to be moved up the slope. :frowning:

It’s honestly not that hard, but the first time you might have to make 10 trips to the depot and it will take all day, but the second time goes very fast

:: sigh:: that’s what I was afraid of, but I’m not really surprised. I’ve done a good bit of plumbing with PVC, so I’m not too worried about that part… it’s more the digging trenches and working in the sun that I’m not looking forward to.

Frankly, at this point I think I may spend a little more time evaluating the whole system and try to make some other changes as well. There is another spot where there are two spray heads literally 8 inches apart. I have no idea what the installer was thinking here. The grass in that spot gets watered at a rate of 2.5 inches per hour while the rest of the zone (which has rotors) gets .5 inches per hour :open_mouth: even worse, one of the spray heads there is a 360 degree one, but it’s right next to the sidewalk, so half the spray goes onto the sidewalk.

Is this forum an appropriate place to post more details about how my zones are correctly configured and get advice for making changes?

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Absolutely, there are a good number of irrigation pros on the forum.

It is probably worth a full system audit. A finely tuned system can have measurable impact on water used. Hunter and rainbird both have some decent planning tools when you decide to rework the system.

@brettds

How many heads are on this zone?
What is the head spacing?
Do you have an open terminal on the controller and an extra wire?

Yes, you could move all the heads to the top of the slope. I’m thinking it may be best, even easier, to add a valve with one lateral along the top of the slope. One horizontal trench versus multiple perpendicular trenches. You will have to tap the mainline to add a valve.

This may have been a place where a fence was moved or removed? You can more than likely turn one of those nozzles off (or cap it) and never miss it.

Someone could have just installed the only nozzle they had there. The old way of installing irrigation was to pretend the sidewalk didn’t exist and include it in the turf measurement and spray over it.

I read your other post too. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you. This may also have been a homeowner installed system. If not, the irrigation contractor who did this should never work on irrigation again.

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Change the heads with heads that have a longer radius (Hunter MP series?) and angle the risers to allow the spray to reach the top.

If the risers are in threaded rigid PVC, you can create a tiltable angle by using 2 right angle Poly threaded adapters in series.