sprinkler system

i want to install 6 sprinklers in the garden linked to a Hozelock automatic water timer. The sprinklers will be pushed into the soil and the hose hidden so its a permanent solution.

At the moment with 6 sprinklers going the pressure is a bit low. How can i boost this? would i need a pump, a separate water tank?

can anyone think of a cheap way to do this.

i do have a power shower pump going spare if anyone can think of a way to use it? maybe try and get hold of a water container and take water off the gutters?

any advice please.


thanks

 

I'm proposing to install some "pop up" sprinklers. But I'm only going to install two.
The problem with "Hoselock" is that their normal connectors have such a small aperture, this must reduce the water pressure. I'm going to use alkethene pipe and 19mm connectors.

I'm also going to do a "dry run." Well... actually a "wet run" I want to see what sort of spread I get before actually burying the pipe in the lawn and siting the "pop ups."

If you want to use a "Hoselock" system and want six sprinkler heads and haven't enough pressure for them all you could make it so only three come on at a time. A bit of experimentation might be advisable first.

To install a pump seems a bit of a problem. I don't think you can run it off the mains, you'd need a reservoir tank somewhere, with a ballcock arrangement connected to the mains.

I've thought about a timer, but I think this would be more "messing about." There are far more days in the year when I wouldn't want it to come on than I would.
My arrangement would only require me walking into the garden and turning on a tap. I have a mechanical Hoselock water meter somewhere which I can set to allow different gallonages of water to pass through it. I might try to incorporate that.

 

I've revived this thread from eight years ago.

It read like a bit of "all talk and no action," but I actually did it. It's "gardener's law," that it hasn't had that much use in the last eight years. But I live in hopes.
It's all "set and forget." As it's all speed-fit pipe so frost doesn't affect it. It cost all of fifty quid for the parts, including the heads I bought on e-Bay.

It might be something worth considering, as it was a doodle to install in half a day.


This was the dry run. Well..wet run actually.... to make sure they would work. Our mains pressure is really only capable of powering three heads, but I settled for two, as it's a small lawn. You have to get the supply equidistant from the two heads.



It was just a case of cutting six inch deep wedges out of the lawn and then replacing them once the pipe was laid. The lawn recovered within a couple of weeks and the scars disappeared.




I had an old valve from an old water heater I recycled. I had to remake the path after connecting it up. The 1.5" polypipe is just to protect the speed-fit.





Demonstration.

You can adjust the spread of the heads, so I've a quadrant blanked out of the far one so the tea-house stays dry and a few degrees of the near one so I don't get wet when I turn them on.


Some must be interested, it's had nearly 4,000 hits.

 

Nice one.

We had a sprinkler system installed by professionals some 23 years ago. It still operates well but it was put in when I had very few gardens and mostly just lawn. So over the past few years I have added a low flow system- probably much like yours where the parts push together. I have 6 zones with this sytem. 1 for each of the three greenhouses and having many lines inside to water pots, 1 services the 10 or so pots and 3 trugs that hang or sit on my deck, 1 for the raised beds along the edge of the deck and the fence line and the last that waters the raised bed in the middle of the yard. I added a fertilizer injector to my system to I can dual purpose whenever the mood hits.

It is a great system however I will be changing the plants that sit in the greenhouses over to a capillary matting system.

I also have solar powered pumps that suck up water from the rain barrels and distribute to the hanging pots and trugs.

All fun tinkering

 

That sounds very impressive!

Part of my "low tech" watering system is a leaky hose system that runs from the edge of the patio, around the many azaleas in the end bed, around the rockery and then all the way down to the bottom of the garden, then across the back bed as far as the tea-house.

There's a dedicated tap under the kitchen window, to which is attached a hose via this forty year-old Hoselock mechanical water meter.



This hose then travels under the patio and our koi pool collar and surfaces behind the waterfall. It is connected to one of these Hoselock multi-valves, which I hide under a bit of York stone. A spur from here goes behind the rockery, to the beginning of the bed to the side of the patio where there's another valve. This means I can water all three sections, a combination of any two, or just one. I can set the meter for as many gallons as I want to use and then it automatically turns itself off.



I have to check now and again to make sure a squirrel hasn't dug up a bit of a hose and chewed through it, but I do have some spare hose for such annoyances.

 

I like the meter. I was trying to figure out how to use one but with so many different zones it gave me a headache.

I just use the see method..

I turn the valve for the hanging plants to open and leave it until I see water starts running out their bottoms. Or until the gardens looked soaked...

Not high tech and definitely flawed with too much human input!

 

Ive considered putting a system in and will do at some point, i will make my own not a kit, ive done a fair bit of plumbing over the years so something like this is not a problem for me,

I do enjoy having a walk round with the hose though gives me time to look at the plants more closely, but sometimes a pain after a long day i will probably get on with it this year.

 

I know if I hadn't got the meter and relied on memory for the leaky hose system I'd forget to turn it off. I usually put it on at night during the summer if it needs it.
At least with the sprinklers I can see them working from the lounge if I come in without turning them off.

 

That reminds me of years ago, back when we had a hot tub, my other half was giving me a real chewing out over the water bill. Later that day he decided to top up the tub. The next morning I went out back into a spongy back yard. So, I said, "Well, if you didn't like the last bill, the next is going to be a doozy. Somebody left the water running on high. All night". He's never said a word about that bill since. He really should know better because what goes around comes back on him pretty quickly. One time he was nagging me about a mark on a wall left by one of my visitors. The very next day, he decided to switch pictures around and lost his grip on one. It careened down the stairs and just before smashing to bits, a corner punched a nice big hole in the wall.... as soon as I saw it, I backed up down the hall and went into the dining room so he couldn't see me stifling a laugh!

 

My koi pool holds 3000 gallons of water, I run a trickle change to a drain 24/7 through a dechlorinator that changes between ten and twenty per cent of the water each week, depending on the time of year. This gives additional help to the filter that runs 24/7. Most koi keepers run the same system. Some do a weekly bulk change, but I don't like that idea, with koi it's best not to have sudden changes...in anything.

We're not on a water meter and if we ever have to have one, I'd jack in the koi pool.

I'll be paying around £800 this year for water and sewerage. Non metered houses are charged at a percentage of their rateable value. It doesn't bother me, as I've paid it that way for thirty years.
I can remember in the seventies when water rates which were at one time included in the general rate, became an "extra," at a whopping £15 a year!

I pay twice that now just to get the green bin emptied.