Help! I need a sprinkler guy.

My yard is looking like crap. Pretty sure I am not getting good coverage from the sprinklers. I know some of the heads have "sunk in" and a few are tilted. I am planning on replacing some of the heads, putting extensions under the ones that are too low to bring them back up, and straightening the crooked ones. As far as trying to get good coverage, I really don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I don't have the right kind of heads? Maybe I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to adjusting them?

If I don't get help soon, my whole yard is going to die. [Help]

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Originally Posted by ray1970

Maybe I don't have the right kind of heads? Maybe I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to adjusting them?

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Maybe Colorado needs some $&#@*$% RAIN! I'm about ready to put salt in my garden and pour a cement slab over it.

I've got some hot spots on my lawn, too. I just have to hit them with a sprinkler and hose twice a week despite my irrigation system. It is just really hard to keep the entire thing green when it is like this.

Watering it by hand is difficult for me because I work long hours and am often out of town for work. I don't mind the dead grass except for the loud noise it causes when the wife is bitching about it. [Coffee]

If I could pave the whole darn thing I probably would. But for now I am going to try to make it green again.

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Originally Posted by ray1970

the wife is bitching about it. [Coffee]

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"hey wife, water the lawn" Problem = solved

pictures??????????

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...NDM5LmpwZw.jpg

Its very hot and very dry, you're sprinklers are probably covering just fine, but they can't keep up with the dry heat.

Water more often and for longer per watering, that's the only solution (although you might consider using some sort of lawn wetting agent ... applied like fertilizer ... dunno if they actually work or are just expensive "snake oil" though).

Of course considering what water costs out here in CO I imagine the complaints from the wife will get louder when that first bill comes.

If you are replacing heads, don't get the cheapo Rain-Bird Home Depot crap, they are garbage. Go to Ewing or CPS or a place like that and get good Hunter heads. There is a BIG difference.

Biggest problem I have with my sprinklers is bits of sand and tiny pebbles will get jammed in the spray orifices, and mess up the spray pattern or block it off completely. This happens when they stop spraying and pop back down, then the dirt and crap that falls in the hole while it's spraying can get jammed in the nozzle.

If you can take the spray nozzles off, look to see if they're clogged and can be cleaned out. When you pull the pop-up stem up (if you have that kind), be sure to use some kind of clamp on the stem so it doesn't pop back down when you remove the nozzle. Sucks when that happens.

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Originally Posted by Zundfolge

Its very hot and very dry, you're sprinklers are probably covering just fine, but they can't keep up with the dry heat.

Water more often and for longer per watering, that's the only solution (although you might consider using some sort of lawn wetting agent ... applied like fertilizer ... dunno if they actually work or are just expensive "snake oil" though).

Of course considering what water costs out here in CO I imagine the complaints from the wife will get louder when that first bill comes.

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The Trugreen guy put some sort of "wetting agent" on it a week ago. I have been watering 30 minutes a station five days a week. The wife wants the lawn green no matter what it cost. I am the one who complains about the $300 water bills.

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Originally Posted by jscwerve

If you are replacing heads, don't get the cheapo Rain-Bird Home Depot crap, they are garbage. Go to Ewing or CPS or a place like that and get good Hunter heads. There is a BIG difference.

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Thanks. I know the last few heads I have gotten were the Rain-Bird ones. I missed out on getting some brass ones a couple of years ago really cheap from a Southerlands store up in Casper.

i was a landscaper for 7 years and am rainbird certified ;) either way if you have head to head coverage, not arc to arc, then you will not have dry spots. i water my lawn twice a day every day just for an appropriate amount of time and i dont have any brown spots despite the heat. it you're using rotors i advise rainbird 3500's from cps of other irrigation supply places. for popups rainbird 1804's have always worked well for me.

edit: just straightening your heads and raising them to the proper level and cleaning around them will help tremendously

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Originally Posted by jreifsch80

if you have head to head coverage, not arc to arc, then you will not have dry spots.

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I think I have some sort of arcing going on. Last year, I had several green "rings" of grass about 14 feet from my sprinkler heads. How do I get "head to head" coverage?

Thanks.

i bet you have a dead rotor, somewhere off to the left (from the picture)
the head in the middle is turning, but it's not getting water from the other two that are supposed to hit it.

it's also just damn dry and almost all residential systems SUCK. (low bidder and all).

30 minutes on a good rotor zone isn't enough
looks like that gets solid sun all day.

keep the grass long, as long as possible. hell i don't even mow til it cools down and i just can't stand the shagginess. let the grass shade the ground.

make sure that all the rotor's are turning first, and getting head to head coverage (each spot in the lawn should be hit by at least 3 sprinklers)

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Originally Posted by ray1970

I think I have some sort of arcing going on. Last year, I had several green "rings" of grass about 14 feet from my sprinkler heads. How do I get "head to head" coverage?

Thanks.

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show us an up close picture of the sprinkler head (rotor) running and not running.

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Originally Posted by ray1970

I think I have some sort of arcing going on. Last year, I had several green "rings" of grass about 14 feet from my sprinkler heads. How do I get "head to head" coverage?

Thanks.

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head to head coverage is where the arc from one head reaches all the way to another head so their water arcs are overlapping. arc to arc coverage is where just the water arcs meet. to get this if you don't already you need to either install farther throwing sprinkler heads or additional sprinkler heads. also make sure the increased water demands can be handled by your gpm flow and psi otherwise you will need to add valves and zones

http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/w...rinkler15a.gif

And JMHO, but I think Trugreen is a rip-off and a waste of money. I had them once, and watched the knuckledragger "treat" my lawn, a friggin' toddler could have done a better job with the hose. Took him all of 5 minutes to unroll, do front and back, roll up, and leave. I could have pissed on the lawn and covered it better.

Canceled them immediately, they've been bugging me ever since to sign back up, and that was 10 years ago.

the reason i water twice a day is early in the morning so the lawn gets a nice watering before its hot and in the evening so the lawn gets a nice drink and cooled off after a dry hot day. don't water in the middle of the day as the water will be wasted through evaporation and water droplets can burn grass much like a magnifying glass

My Trugreen guy is an older gentleman. I think he has OCD and he always does a pretty good job for me. I have been here on several occasions and watched him work without him knowing about it. Anyhow, that is a different story.

I am pretty sure I have "head to head" coverage on my sprinklers. There are five zones in the back yard and each zone has four heads on it. So that means I have 20 sprinkler heads covering an area that is approximately 6400 sq. feet.

Special thanks to the forum member who called me to offer his help. [Beer]

then it might not be a bad idea to replace your nozzles (head replacement is only needed for heads that are broken or not functioning properly like a rotor that wont rotate) and then make sure you are getting enough water on at the right times of day.

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Originally Posted by jreifsch80

the reason i water twice a day is early in the morning so the lawn gets a nice watering before its hot and in the evening so the lawn gets a nice drink and cooled off after a dry hot day. don't water in the middle of the day as the water will be wasted through evaporation and water droplets can burn grass much like a magnifying glass

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Not to hijack but how long are you running your sprinklers when you run it twice a day everyday? Popups and rotors?

Nozzles on the heads are critical, they come with different GPM and arc specs.
Water pressure is critical as well, your average home water supply is usually in the 60-80 psi range and usually that is too much for your average home pop up head. You end up with too fine of a spray that is prone to wind drift so a regulator or flow control at the solenoid valves may be required. The flow control does nothing for the pressure, but at least allows you to reduce the flow so you get a gentle drizzle instead of a hurricane spray and the water ends up everywhere but where it needs to be.
The system needs to be balanced with GPM, pressure, head/nozzle selection and head to head coverage.
Toro,RainBird and Hunter all have very helpful tips on their websites as well as the CSU Agricultural extension.

Two a day watering schedules also have a big advantage on Colorado soil. If you run a single say, 30 minute time for each zone a good amount of the water you are putting down runs off or puddles.
Split that into two 15 minute cycles and the first watering has a chance to soak in and then the soil is much more receptive to the second cycle.

Flow is equally as I
Portent as psi you could have 60 psi but only 3 gpm of flow. Psi mainly becomes more important when dealing with longer mainlines.

Up north here when I was installing irrigation systems it was extremely rare for there to be a psi of over 60 and usually was around 55 psi but yours could be completely different also you can get flow regulating sprinkler valves usually all you need to do is replace just the bonet and diaphragm from the new flow control valve to the old one if it's the same brand. There are also pressure reducers that can be installed but I highly doubt your problem is too much pressure

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Originally Posted by jreifsch80

don't water in the middle of the day as the water will be wasted through evaporation and water droplets can burn grass much like a magnifying glass

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This is simply not true although I hear it a lot. When you're hot, do you stay away from water because it makes you hotter? Same thing for the grass. Watering a few minutes per zone during the heat of the day can help to cool the grass back down to keep it from becoming stressed out. The reason this story keeps going around is that tree-huggers try to scare people into conservation as it isn't as efficient as watering in the early morning or at night. Also, watering at night will allow for mold growth since the grass basically won't be utilizing the water hardly at all w/o the sun. The best time to water is early in the morning and then you can water for short periods throughout the day to cool the water during especially hot, dry and windy days like we're experiencing now. Wind plays a HUGE roll in all this that most home owners don't realize. It's one thing to be dry and hot but throw high wind into this and it's a nightmare to keep your soil moist.

I also second what someone said about Trugreen. They don't give a crap about your lawn and only care about your regular payments. Keep it simple: Water, regular mowing and fertilizer. Do those three things as best as you can you will find that your lawn is as nice as any in your neighborhood.

Man I wish you sprinkler smart people lived closer.. I need to add some heads and I have NO idea how.

Basically when I bought my house it had a sprinkler system in it, but they installed it stupid. Several zones have FAR too many heads and my biggest part of the yard has too few. Only one on each corner, and it doesn't cover the whole area.

I was wanting to add about 4 more heads for coverage, or if I can change the heads to something w/ more flow to get the coverage I need that'd be great too.

I know it'd be an easy thing to do.. I just have no clue how to do it.

I could however provide a nice bottle of whatever you like to drink :)

aren't homeowners/DIY's great????????

almost always it's really better to start over.

but no one ever does, they add and put things here and there and try and make it work.

in the long run it costs a LOT more water.

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Originally Posted by JohnTRourke

aren't homeowners/DIY's great????????

almost always it's really better to start over.

but no one ever does, they add and put things here and there and try and make it work.

in the long run it costs a LOT more water.

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So, let me see if I understand you correctly.

Option 1: Prep land for new sod, buy new sod and lay new sod plus watering in new sod (probably as much as he would use to try to bring his established lawn back in all actuality). That's either a LOT of work to a novice homeowner and equipment rental or a lot of money in labor to an expert.

Option 2: More water.

You really think option 2 will cost more than option 1? You're talking maybe an extra $100/mo (on the high end) over what he normally spends on watering or potentially thousands for a whole new yard.

Now, w/o pictures of the guy's yard it's hard to say if it's really beyond saving but based on what he's described the mistake was I have a hard time believing it's a lost cause unless this occurred two months ago and the owner hasn't even gotten his watering hoses out for the season once yet. My guess is if the guy has had a healthy yard every other time his idea of 'brown' is going to be a lot different than some other's idea of brown who have never watered or mowed their rental property's yard.

Edit: Actually, I may be confusing this thread with another one of nearly the same topic. Bah! I give up.

You left out option #3

Green concrete and rubber Palm trees[Coffee]

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Originally Posted by BPTactical

You left out option #3

Green concrete and rubber Palm trees[Coffee]

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In our other neighborhood we had a guy who paved his entire back yard.

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Originally Posted by Jer

In our other neighborhood we had a guy who paved his entire back yard.

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I can can almost top that. The old 'hood, about mid 70's The guy down the street, River rock, the whole front yard and all of the back yard. The only "green things" he had was two trees and a couple of bushes.

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Originally Posted by Jer

So, let me see if I understand you correctly.

Option 1: Prep land for new sod, buy new sod and lay new sod plus watering in new sod (probably as much as he would use to try to bring his established lawn back in all actuality). That's either a LOT of work to a novice homeowner and equipment rental or a lot of money in labor to an expert.

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why would you need a new yard?
I'm confused
We're talking sprinkler systems here.
the tap is done, a clock exists, everything else is relatively straight forward.
Probably $1500 bucks in parts and rental of a trencher or a pipe puller at most. probably less.

new correctly designed system.

My water bills can exceed $300 a month in the summer (and this month is going to be ridiculous) and I have a well designed system (pretty big yard).

If we can knock $100 off a month from not running twice as much, in 15 months it's paid for. that's about 3 years of watering.

that pays for itself.

Plus, the grass is green and the system works.

I never said or alluded to replacing the yard. that's plain silly.

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Originally Posted by ray1970

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...NDM5LmpwZw.jpg

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I adjusted twice this year, and still not getting enough coverage in some areas. I see tons of spots like that in my neighboring houses as well. We use to get notices from a HOA when someone has a spot like that.
HOA is being really nice about it this year.

I know my backyard is Hunters.
I had to DIY on sprinkler heads, because I destroyed it with my lawn mowers this year. I tried with higher flow rate, changed the angle+distance, and still same.

The best solution for me was just to buy those $2.99 temp sprinkler head and spot water them. Bag of $1.49 fertilizer does help. I also reduced automatic sprinkler time by 4minutes/day average.

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Originally Posted by JohnTRourke

why would you need a new yard?
I'm confused
We're talking sprinkler systems here.
the tap is done, a clock exists, everything else is relatively straight forward.
Probably $1500 bucks in parts and rental of a trencher or a pipe puller at most. probably less.

new correctly designed system.

My water bills can exceed $300 a month in the summer (and this month is going to be ridiculous) and I have a well designed system (pretty big yard).

If we can knock $100 off a month from not running twice as much, in 15 months it's paid for. that's about 3 years of watering.

that pays for itself.

Plus, the grass is green and the system works.

I never said or alluded to replacing the yard. that's plain silly.

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Like I said, I think I was confusing this with another thread that was going on and I thought you were suggesting replacing the entire yard and starting over which, I think we can both agree, would be foolish at this point.

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Originally Posted by Jer

Like I said, I think I was confusing this with another thread that was going on and I thought you were suggesting replacing the entire yard and starting over which, I think we can both agree, would be foolish at this point.

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oh hell yes (to foolish)
fix the sprinklers (either band aids and baling wire or really fix them), scratch in some seed, water like hell this fall when it cools down
fixed