If you are interested in landscape and lawn irrigation there’s a lot to know. Overall once a system is installed properly and designed properly, an irrigation system is simple and easy to operate. However in the same breath, it can be very sophisticated and complex.
One thing that is important to know is that in the world of irrigation there have been a lot of advancements in the capabilities and the value and that achieved. Proper watering is the single most important factor when looking for healthy green grass and landscaping that thrives and survives.
People and companies will spend lots of money on planting new grass, seed, fertilizer and all the other tricks to get a healthy lawn. Which is never a bad thing, however oftentimes a lawn and or landscapes, most and more than anything, needs proper regular watering.
Irrigation Anna Tx systems are split into different sections often called zones. Zones can be a part of an area. An area would be like a front yard that is large. If there isn’t enough water pressure, the front yard can have more than one zone that waters different parts to ensure the whole yard is covered.
The important factor is that things should be separated or grouped according to the amount of water needed. For example you wouldn’t want to water the flowers and the grass the same amount. You really wouldn’t want to water a newly planted tree with anything else but other trees.
Also, there are different ways to actually emit water to an area. During the design process it’s important to know what’s best for each area or zone that needs water. Most of the time each emitter type needs to be in a zone of its own.
There are some most common emitters when talking generally about residential or commercial irrigation. An emitter in this case is just something that applies water to landscape in some way. For example, “sprays” are the most common today.
These emitters or heads are buried underground and they pop up and a spray nozzle attached. Sprays emit a solid sheet of water in a fixed position. You can get different spray patterns or radius that spray further and in a different pattern. Sprays are common for lawns or grassy areas.
However, they can pop up from 2in – 12in and spray from 5 ft- 15 ft, so they can be used in flower beds and other areas.
That brings up another consideration to the design step. Some types of landscape actually don’t do too well when watered from the “top” or sprayed. Some states and cities have requirements from small areas like the strip of grass that’s between the road and the sidewalk.
In both of these situations the design should include “drip” as the preferred emitter. Drip is typically a brown hose that is run subsurface, under mulch or sod.
Drip is often run around the foundation in hot dry areas to make sure the ground doesn’t seize up and pull away causing it to fall or collapse. So to explain, drip does just that. It drips. Other emitters are measured in gallons emitted per minute. Drip is much slower and measured by how much water is used per hour. Drip is great for plants because it’s watering slowly over a longer time but the water is trapped under the mulch.
So this ensures more water is used less is wasted and more water gets to the roots which encourages the roots to grow deeper. Deeper roots help the landscape reach more nutrients and they avoid more diseases and bacteria. Deeper roots also help with a stable pH level which can be very important.
The pH too high or too low can cause grass and plants to die. This can actually be a problem in places with acidic rain from pollution or in places with lots of rabbits or squirrels because the urine and fecal matter typically has a very high pH that can kill vegetation.
To continue on the topic of common emitters, for larger areas the design should consider rotors or Mp rotators. Rotors can do crazy things when considering what we have talked about so far. Rotors in the common sense spray about 15-25ft.
They can be adjusted but the stream gets flatter and spreads out to be a wider shorter throw which can cause over spray on fences or other things which is a waste of water and can cause damage to property. so rotors in most residential scenarios typically aren’t the best fit.
Large open yards or commercial properties are great places for rotors. The main benefit is that installing rotors takes less labor, they spray far, and they are adjustable. You can turn them down, or adjust the rotation. Most common rotors can be adjusted from 90-360 degrees making it a great way to apply water to a large area with less work of installing a lot of smaller ones.
Now Mp rotators are sorta a mix of heads. They are on a pop up like mentioned about sprays. They just screw on like a spray nozzle. As where a rotor also is buried and pops up but it’s bigger and bulky in comparison. Mps being designed this way makes for easy conversions from sprays. Mps are available in a small 5 ft radius up to a 25 ft radius. They are adjustable spray patterns making them fit most all places a spray would have. They also rotate and spray like a rotor but instead mps have multiple streams. The streams of an mp is made of alot of large droplets of water. This makes mps less affected by wind and weather allowing more water to reach the soil. This helps save money and also have better looking landscapes.
This is just the basics but ultimately once the Irrigation Anna Tx system is installed properly you just set the controller and forget about it. You should do periodic checks on the health of things and sign up for a maintenance plan to ensure the life of your irrigation system earns you your money back.