# Lawn sprinkler systems



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

I'm not big on Lawn systems as they are labor intensive, expensive and I find it hard to get the amount of money I feel they are worth. 
That said I have gone to the Orbit 4" professional series heads that have the brass nozzles and the Hunter PGV electric valves. These seem pretty solid but I don't have a track record with them yet. I just put in a 7 station / 70 head system with all sch. 40 piping and hoping for the best. I'm open to better systems if anybody has suggestions. I tired of putting in crappy material for a lack of knowing a better solution.


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

When I worked in the irrigation industry we used hunter pgj roters and pgv valves and toro 570 pop-ups this was the best combo, I helped/done install irrigation systems for about a year and a half. hunter pgv valves support high flows and are industructable. Orbit jar top valves were a problem here in fl I can't tell you how many we/I replaced we/I tried to rebuild them but they would go back to weeping pretty fast. We used hunter timers, very good timers. I could go on and on bout this lol


----------



## GREENPLUM (Jul 27, 2008)

the only thing I do that concerns lawn watering is install the backflo, that work is full of hacks that work for peanuts


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

I use the orbit 57900 timer which I also have on my personal system and love it. I had a wired thing happen last week on a manifold replacement job. 5 valves were al leaking out of the diaphram seals. I replaced all valves with the pgv valves but had one crack out on the end of line valve. The master valve is 50 ft away or so and rattles the system pretty good as it gets the water there is my theory. So I installed a shock arrestor on the end of the line and a 11/4" air chamber on inlet side to the manifold hoping to get this thing under control. he valve may have been threaded in to deep on the mip but I never saw one crack through the valve like this.


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

GREENPLUM said:


> the only thing I do that concerns lawn watering is install the backflo, that work is full of hacks that work for peanuts


 This was for a good customer of mine other wise I would have never gotten the job I'm sure.


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

GREENPLUM said:


> the only thing I do that concerns lawn watering is install the backflo, that work is full of hacks that work for peanuts


That's one of the reasons I quit, I wanted to do the work Right but my co-workers insisted "we just throw it in and get out" I do irrigation if my boss picks it up which is rarely cause the illegals and hacks beat my bosses price, my boss makes sure it's done right and we take pride. Hacks on the other hand use liberal doses of crappy products and duct tape, that is the irrigation industry in fl summed up


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

mpsllc said:


> I use the orbit 57900 timer which I also have on my personal system and love it. I had a wired thing happen last week on a manifold replacement job. 5 valves were al leaking out of the diaphram seals. I replaced all valves with the pgv valves but had one crack out on the end of line valve. The master valve is 50 ft away or so and rattles the system pretty good as it gets the water there is my theory. So I installed a shock arrestor on the end of the line and a 11/4" air chamber on inlet side to the manifold hoping to get this thing under control. he valve may have been threaded in to deep on the mip but I never saw one crack through the valve like this.


I never seen a valve crack like that before either, I've seen valves rattle like that due to bad diaphragms


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

Yeah this new valve cracked almost all the way through the body. I think it was getting hammered. To me this whole thing started with the MV being too far away which I think is why the old valves ( 3 YEARS OLD) were all leaking. The gauge at the pressure tank which looks fairly new showed 50 psi ( who knows how accurate it is) but was no handy place to connect my gauge.


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

Yea the valve was probly getting hammered, i would sell the homeowner a CSV ( cycle stop valve) goes in before pressure tank and fixtures, holds pressure constant, better for irrigation system and better for p tank and appliances I will post a link to the Csv website for you


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

http://cyclestopvalves.com/index2.html. Find the right valve depending on max flow of pump


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

We get bout 24 gpm off a 1 hp sub in my area so that would need a Csv 1, go with the brass Csv more durable


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

Mississippiplum said:


> Yea the valve was probly getting hammered, i would sell the homeowner a CSV ( cycle stop valve) goes in before pressure tank and fixtures, holds pressure constant, better for irrigation system and better for p tank and appliances I will post a link to the Csv website for you


 Can't say I've delt with the CSV valve. I'm thinking the supply coming from the MV gets hit with the 50 psi and the quick acting electric valves are hammering when the water gets there and blows it up actually which is why I tried to soften the blow. This system has a really huge holding tank, like 8 ft tall and probly 3 feet wide. So I don't think it's running out of water. Am I understanding this right?


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

The flow is fine, if the tank is that big the pump is pretty big, sounds like the main valve has a bad diaphragm.


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

You could try moving the main valve closer to the manifold that should stop the reverberation or atleast dampen it, try that if the diaphragm is ok 


I kinda threw the Csv subject in cause they make irrigation systems operate more effeciantly, and save appliances, make p tank last longer too


----------



## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

And with that big tank it's not a pump cycling issue and pump cycling wouldn't cause hammering to happen like that any way


Csv solves pump cycling issues, stops pump from cycling


----------



## greenscoutII (Aug 27, 2008)

I've done a fair amount of irrigation work and I've become a pretty big fan of Irritrol products in general. You're right, plumbers where I'm from seldom mess with irrigation because of the difficulty in getting the right money for the work.

In Colorado, we generally used 1" 100# poly pipe for irrigation with a Febco 765 PVB to protect against backflow. Typically do a copper manifold mounted on a wall so that everything is easy to get to and service. Where my old boss was able to make some easy money was with end of season shutdown and blow outs and season start ups.

Typically we would install a schraeder right on the manifold to blow the system out and also a ball valve with drain right where we tied in so we could drain the system all the way down. Also, we would pull the poppet and bonnet assy out of the PVB and take the solenoids off of the valves to protect against freeze up.

A lot of times people would fire their systems up in March when we would start to get some warm weather, but Colorado being what it is, the next week there would be freeze breaks galore, so there is a lot of service work generated by sprinkler systems.


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

Being in SW New Mexico we don't have too harsh of cold weather (as a rule) but we did have a cold snap for bout a week that was getting 11 below zero. I noticed as water season started up and went on there were alot of leaking diaphrams or just totally busted up piping inside the boxes. So now I suggest at the least to lay a thick blanket of insulation over the piping and put the cover back down. Got tired of repairing the darn things most of which are root bound and a pain in the butt to repair.


----------



## Epox (Sep 19, 2010)

greenscoutII said:


> I've done a fair amount of irrigation work and I've become a pretty big fan of Irritrol products in general. You're right, plumbers where I'm from seldom mess with irrigation because of the difficulty in getting the right money for the work.
> 
> In Colorado, we generally used 1" 100# poly pipe for irrigation with a Febco 765 PVB to protect against backflow. Typically do a copper manifold mounted on a wall so that everything is easy to get to and service. Where my old boss was able to make some easy money was with end of season shutdown and blow outs and season start ups.
> 
> ...


Do you have a preference on the Irritrols valves for typical 3/4 or 1" systems as I notice they have a nice selection.


----------

