DIY yard sprinkler system...water hookup

Just a suggestion...Rainbird will do a layout for you and tell you what you need to get...you still do the install. I think that service from them is free.

Only problem with hooking up to an existing water supply could be the cost aspect. Do you get billed for sewer and water? If so, the sewer cost is based on your water usage. That's why some utility companies offer a separate sprinkler meter...so you don't get charged for sewer on that side...but the price/gallon is usually higher.

call your water service provider and ask for an irrigation meter. it will keep this water usage from affecting your sewage user fees (if in BR area).

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Rainbird will do a layout for you and tell you what you need to get...you still do the install. I think that service from them is free.

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Yep, and have utilized to this point.

Thanks

I'm on auto bill pay for wastewater...waters the charge? If a normal sprinkler would add maybe 10 bucks, screw the extra meter...but I assume since it's a thing, there must be significant savings, or else why do it?

It is critical that you come off the mainline to your house before it goes into your house. Make a separate shutoff valve. I have a separate irrigation water line and meter and highly suggest it if you can make it work with the city. It helps you monitor costs because it can get expensive in the summer.

It sounds to me like you aren't sure of the questions you need to ask yet. I was in the same boat when I started my DIY system, which consists of 14 zones. Hands down the best resource is irrigationtutorials.com. I read that website over and over and then made a plan. As the poster above said, Rainbird will make you a free plan if you send them your info on a form they link in their website.

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For landscapes areas, do they have a way to connect those "drip tubes" or whatever they are called to get water into a potted plant sitting in or near the landscaped area?

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Absolutely. It usually requires a special pressure regulating and filtered valve for that particular zone, although I have also retrofitted existing pop up heads to pressure regulated drip systems for potted plants.

Here is the system & electrical design for my system, which I still tweak constantly. You will note that my design had drip systems for every potted plant on my property (or a way to later add drip emittors or micro sprays for potted plants). I even have a plan (but haven't gotten to this one yet) to run a drip line along my patio so I can run drops to each of my hanging baskets.

Damn! Very nice

Got a pic of the legend on that...I got a little lost following the diff colors and differentiating....

Not that it matters, lol...I just enjoy educating myself on stuff like that

doesn't it rain everyday in Louisiana anyway?

I don't have it on my laptop right now but I'll find it and post for you! The general ideal is that each of the colored squares is a valve and the colored lines matching the valve are what it feeds. The main comes off the street and forks in front of the house and around back after it goes through a backflow preventer.

Since I am DIYing it, I designed it "state of the art" so to speak and am taking my time with the work.

I did that from scratch. There are free autocad type programs you can use, but I actually used my house survey as a base map because I wanted more of a concept drawing so I could address my drip irrigation systems.

The one thing I have to be extremely careful of is when doing the lawn rotator spray heads is to make sure my calculations are correct to ensure I have enough pressure to each spray head. My zones have (or will have) Rainbird RVAN sprinklers, so I know the exact GPM requirements per zone and can make sure my water pressure matches that. I also am doing 6 inch pop ups for my 4 inch St. Augustine grass and opted with pressure regulated spray bodies so my rotator nozzles would have optimal performance (especially on the sloped areas).

If you do the free rainbird service, I think it is really a service that will calculate your lawn sq ft and then tell you what the appropriate head placement is. That is something I am doing myself but I will caution anyone reading this it is fairly complicated when you first start out trying to learn it. Head placement is critical because the ideal system has head-to-head coverage in the lawn.

Here are my coverage zones. It is my first attempt to get head-to-head coverage for the RVANs. I also reduced the spray radius by 2 feet as recommended by irrigationtutorials.com to compensate for wind.




**the pic above is more like what you will get back from Rainbird. They'll show you the head placemnet but they aren't going to show you the infrastructure/how to build it.

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LOL I have a similar setup. I also installed a separate zone that fills (overfills) my dogs 25 gallon water bowl each morning. My dogs can come and go through a dog door we installed into the laundry room but they spend 90% of the day outside and I wanted to make sure there was clean water for them. I have it set to dispense enough water to fill it half way twice a day. Because my lab will get in it and just lay there...

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You sir are raising the bar