Hey all, I've been reading up on sprinklers at irrigationtutorials and have a good grasp of what I need to do. I'll be covering about 7000 sq feet. How big of a project is it? Something I could do in a few days if I took the time off work?

The water company said the static pressure in my area is 55, so I have a good ballpark figure to start. The meter is in my basement but I'm unsure of the type of pipe coming I'm. It's blue and about 1.5 thick. I still have more research to do before I lay everything out. Any suggestions on getting stuff from inside to outside? I have full access to all piping up to about 3feet before the meter and unrestricted access after. Is it necessary to have valves outside? I assume so I'm case of leaks, just curious.

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It's a pretty big project, and one I hacked at (myself) for several weeks in evenings and weekends. We should point out my equipment was a shovel and me.

In my case, at about 10,000 square feet, I did everything off the hose bibs. Six zones is sufficient to cover the property (plus two for eight total including the gardens), except the extreme back line (that I don't care about and don't see anyway). I use battery-operated controllers to avoid running power there, as it it would be inconvenient in the extreme.

Inside to outside, tapping off your hose water...honestly, I'd get a plumber to drop the line. But I'm not at all comfortable working with pipes.

Outside valves: Yes. Not that your valve mounts couldn't theoretically be inside, but like you noted...what if one blows? 10 GPM will fill a basement pretty fast, at least enough to be inconvenient.

Personally, I use two valve manifolds (made for the battery controllers), one front and one back. Both can run at the same time as I have sufficient pressure and flow to manage it, and I'm only tapping 6 GPM at a time from any one manifold.

I have some experience from last year about this, and my area covered was slightly larger.

I'll write up my experiences this evening, after work is done.

You rock, thanks! I definitely want to run a line instead of using the hose bibs because the bib I would use is off my oldest daughters room, and running it late or early would keep/wake her up.

Other than that, it will be me and a friend or two and a decent amount of brew.

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With 2-3 people, it'd still be quite a task. If you plan to minimally bury the lines (I used lifetime-guarantee flexible poly line always running in the gardens with two exceptions), it's not that bad. If you want to put in PVC at the correct depth, either get a pipe puller or a Ditch Witch to open the areas for you. There's a modest amount of mess using both methods.

Flexible risers or swing risers make installing the sprinkler heads pretty easy. I used funny pipe, with maximum runs of that a foot or so.

A few notes: count on having less flow than you think you will. Maxing out your flow means dropping the system pressure considerably, so I always leave a spare GPM or two on any given line.

Space sprinklers CLOSER than head to head. It's easy to water less, and much more difficult to water more to cover a dry section. You can always reconfigure or shut down a head if you have to. Adding one is a nightmare. Also, winds will tear the sprinkler streams somewhat, so even a gentle wind has to be accounted for. In one case, between two head-to-head MP Rotator 3000s, I have another one installed. That's optimal for my southern face, but way overkill by any reasonable design.

If you use the Hunter PGP (which I like and recommend), the blue nozzles are better than the red ones, and distrubute water much better with, it seems, less windage.

Look up rainbird's website you can fill out a diagram of your property and they will send you a free placement chart. Tell you how many zones and where to run the pipe.

I used a trencher for my install. Running the pipe is easy. If you are using poly pipe like I did you need to put clamps on the end where you put the fitting in.

I have 1300sqft so I have 8 rotors on one zone and 8 sprays on another. I had to trench under a sidewalk and under lots of tree roots.

I started mine at 8am and had it done by 5. That was just the pipe and sprinklers it took me another day to run the water pipe to the valves

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First read the irrigation tutorials like you already have.

Then, I sent in a sketch of my property to rainbird's free design service. There are others, so you don't have to use rainbird's.

Then, using rainbirds basic layout, I used what I learned from irrigationtutorials to correct it and make it right.

It's a lot of work. Mine was over 20,000 sq. ft. I can't remember exactly how long it took me, but I was doing most of it after work and weekends.

Gluing is easy.

I don't know your regulations for connecting to the water line, or backflow regs, so can't comment on that. If I was going to hire something out, the main connection and backflow device install would be it.

Trenchers are pretty easy to run. It helped me to have a friend watch and keep me straight and at a consistent depth.

Basically, just follow the tutorials. His head spacing and pressure loss calculations are spot on. You will not go wrong following that.

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And don't be afraid to overbuild the system around trees and hot concrete or asphalt.

I wish I built mine in a manner that I could "spot water" those areas.

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Definitely would recommend using a pipe-puller and poly pipe, especially with soft IA soil (grew up in Ames, would love some IA soil in my yard now!). A trencher is going to make a lot more work and bring subsoil up that you may or may not get back below the topsoil. I used a trencher last year because I was afraid of breaking pipe and/or puller blades and now have gravelly areas where I didn't get the nice soil back on top (or not enough, anyway).

I had an area about the same size as you, 8000 ft2, six zones, took probably five days work, since the trencher really struggled with all the rocks and I ended up having to redo several trenches by hand. With a pipe puller and decent soil, it's probably a 1-2 day job to lay the pipe and connect the heads.

I put in a five zone system in two weekends, covering 11,500 sq ft. You can't use a pipe-puller in an area with significant rocks. Two of my sons and I did it.

I would stress several things to pay attention to:

Find out what your service main pipe size is. That's critical to getting the volume you want.

If the service main is substantial, don't cut down on the diameter of the tube/pipe. I went with 1" tube all the way to the heads. I can get 55' of throw with 63 PSI on 1" tube.

I'd do pipe if you property is flat. With a hill, I feel tube is better.

Make sure to add a blowout connector so that you can blow the system out with air in the Fall.

I think the professional-grade heads are head-and-shoulders above the stuff that you'll find at the big-box stores. And with some shopping, they're cheaper too.

Great info guys. Thanks for sharing. Bookmarked for future use.