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Converting Rainbird Sprinklers to Garden Irrigation?

11 years ago

My wife and I recently purchased a house and I am busy on getting our raised vegetable garden beds built and ready to go for this spring.

The previous owners had a sprinkler system installed that covered the entire property. However, I do not want to use sprinklers on my vegetable garden. My original idea was to build my own irrigation system out of PVC pipe, but since there are sprinklers everywhere, I figure I can just convert one of the zones into a drip/emitter irrigation system.

The zone in question is a straight line of 14 different model 1800 sprayers against my north fence. They are spaced about 10 feet apart. I plan on building 16'x4' raised beds and so each bed could be watered by two of the current 1800 sprayers.

I've done a little bit of research and it seems I can buy a converter that goes into the existing sprayer that just creates a 1/4" male plug that you can then attack tubing to. Then place emitters on the tubing.

Does anyone have any experience/tips/suggestions about this process? Am I heading down a road of frustration? I have no experience with Rainbird products. Does the tubing not last very long? I assume it's best to keep the tubing covered with mulch to make it last longer? Are the emitters terrible?

If I do it this way each existing sprayer head will be converted to water a 8'x4' densely planted area. I'm assuming it could handle this?

Any advice is greatly welcomed. Thanks!

This post was edited by Dulahey on Mon, Jan 28, 13 at 12:50

Comments (5)

lehua49
11 years ago
Dul,

You can make you system more flexible by digging down and removing the heads at the lateral line and replace them with a valved riser and then use your drip system. Then each section can be irrigated separately. You will need to do this when gardening with different planting of varying different watering patterns and different harvest and planting time. Just a suggestion. Aloha
dulahey
Original Author
11 years ago
So the lateral lines are most likely just PVC pipe?

And then to water my beds I would just turn on that zone and manually choose (with a ball valve?) which bed I want to water?

This sounds like a good idea, but I would be unsure about pressure and what not. Pressure isn't really regulated in a lawn sprinkler system is it? Would it be best to put some kind of regulater on each bed?

Thanks for the response btw!
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As mentioned by others, what your suggesting is a pain in the rear lol! "zone splitting" is usually only done as a last resort... usually when someone has had a catastrophic and irreversible loss of pressure/flow, and the zone will no longer function at all even when nozzles are adjusted down to their minimum. May I suggest an alternative? tweak your drip emmitters. they come in different flow rates and are easy and inexpensive to replace. if one area drys out faster than others, consider amending the soil to have it retain water longer. Barring that, I'm afraid splitting a zone does involve quite a deal of digging, wiring, piping, backfilling and all other manner of pain in the butt-ness. also assuming that hunter timer is a 6 zone model, if not it will require an upgrade. I would second a professional, since theres lots of room for the inexperianced to make a mess up of a zone split.
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Karen, you can combine the micro bubblers and drip emitter tubing in one zone. Add up the flow rates of all the bubblers and emitters. The total shouldn't exceed the amount recommended for a zone with 1/2 inch tubing. That amount will vary depending on the size of the 1/2 tubing you have (there are several sizes of 1/2 inch tubing) . Your bubblers are adjustable so use the max for design purposes. If you have 5 bubblers at 10 gph that would be 50 gph. Then add in the emitter tubing. If you have 10 runs of emitter tubing and each run does 10 gph that would be 100 gph. Your total gph would be 150. You should be good up to about 200 gph
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I'm pretty sure you're underwatering--30-60 seconds in hot weather wouldn't be nearly enough in my garden. My recommendation: - Pick a spot of at least a couple of square feet, preferably bigger, preferably without plants. - Get a trowel. - Water it as the same way you usually water your plants. - Dig with the trowel to see how deep the soil is damp. I'm guessing that it will be barely damp and only at the very top. - Water some more--four times as long as you've been watering. - Dig again a few inches over. - Repeat, quadrupling the watering time each time, until the soil is moist all the way down--that is, until you keep on digging, a foot, more, and never find a dry spot. - When you have a number--five minutes, twenty, forty--water the whole area that long, in a "catchup" watering. I'd recommend getting a soaker hose or sprinkler so you can walk away and let the soaker run for several hours or the sprinkler for maybe thirty minutes. - After the whole area has "caught up" and is nice and moist, periodically do the water-and-dig thing again, to find out how long you have to water for maintenance watering. Returning to add: If you don't want to do all this experimenting, because you're just trying to keep these plants alive, just go out there and water and water and water and water until the water shows a tendency to pool up for more than a minute, across the whole bed. Bring a book--I suspect you'll be watering for an hour or more.
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lehua49
11 years ago
Dul,

Pressure is the dependent on how many outlets or sprinklers are in operation. If you have only one riser running then it will receive all the system pressure. The flow rate will be dependent on the cross-sectional area of the pipe and pressure. Systems are designed to handle the way the irrigation is set up knowing the flow rates of all the system irrigation heads and the overall system pressure. You could calculate what you can do by knowing each component's flow rate and pressure drop. But most people do things by trial and error. Which way do you want to go. To calculate the design, you need to some homework. For starters, the system's total flow rate and pressure. Would you know how to find those? Aloha
dulahey
Original Author
11 years ago
I would not. I don't have any data on pressure or flow. I'm pretty sure trial and error would be how I would go.

This is kind of why I was originally leaning towards using the Rainbird converters because they contain a pressure regulator in them. I figured this would take care of any issues. Although, this is the most expensive way too.
lehua49
11 years ago
Dul,

You will not be sure what flow rate you will receive from the emitters because of the pressure regulation but it doesn't really matter. Just adjust the time of irrigation to apply the amount you believe the plants need according to their life cycle. There is a way to measure the flow rate from the emitters if you are interested.

Are you using municipal water from a outside faucet for your system or from your yard mainline before it enters the house? aloha

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