irrigation question

[Road Guy]

anyone have a clue how to find out what zones are which with irrigation?

This is the "unit" the previous owners of our house installed. it has 5 zones.. (little overkill for a .25 acre yard don't you think?)

It has a test function and each zone runs but what I cant track down is all the drip lines and what zone they are tied to?

the people have way more landscaping than I care for but they do have some nice size trees (that wont exist here without irrigation) and there are drip lines to my garden area that I cant figure out how or when they run? I don't want to lose the trees..

I don't think the zones are running the same since we turned it off last year.

I have it set to Auto and it runs similar to last year but I cant seem to figure out which drip lines are attached to which zone, except the front yard, when the front yard sprinkler zone runs the drip lines also run, but it doesn't appear to be the same for the rest of the yard (unless its broke somewhere)

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

Have you found the valve box?? It should have several electric valves with wiring.

 

[NJmike PE]

yeah, I think SW is correct (a broke watch is still right 2x a day). I think you're going to have to run each zone individually to determine which is which. You would think that they (previous homeowner) would have that recorded somewhere. good luck

 

[Road Guy]

There's at least 2 valve boxes on each side of the house but I can't really tell where they all go..

Yesterday I ran the test function and got most of it figured out but there are drip lines everywhere and those I can't figure out just yet.. And by drip lines I mean the entire perimeter of the property has them for all the trees and plants...

 

[roadwreck]

Short of digging up the supply lines to see where they go the only way to figure out the zones is to run them one by one and see where the water is flowing.

I hear that's where having a controller you can turn on/off via your smartphone is really handy.

http://www.amazon.com/Rachio-Smart-Enabled-Irrigation-Controller/dp/B00IEFXDIE

(no, I don't have one of these )

 

[jglavin PE]

I bought a house last fall and have the same issue (very similar looking controller, too)... back of the house has a bunch of planters with drip lines and I dunno which zones they are on. I just set all the zones to 15 minutes and hope for the best. It's on my list to create a site plan of the pipe routing and zones, along with fixing the rain sensor so it actually works.

(of course, I haven't even turned the system on with all the rain/snow/biblical hail CO has been getting this spring)

If we ever sell the house, the next buyer will be pleased to receive upon closing a bound, categorized O&M manual for all equipment in the house, along with a revit model...

 

[YMZ PE]

If we ever sell the house, the next buyer will be pleased to receive upon closing a bound, categorized O&M manual for all equipment in the house, along with a revit model...

We actually received one of these for our current house (sans Revit BIM). The previous owner was an electrical engineer.

 

[roadwreck]

If we ever sell the house, the next buyer will be pleased to receive upon closing a bound, categorized O&M manual for all equipment in the house, along with a revit model...

We actually received one of these for our current house (sans Revit BIM). The previous owner was an electrical engineer.

I should put something like that together I guess. I just spent a fair amount of time and money reviving the system for our house. The previous owner didn't use it so it had probably been nearly a decade since it was operable. Saturday was the first time all the zones were operable and this morning was the first time it ran automatically. Kind of a momentous occasion.

 

[ptatohed]

anyone have a clue how to find out what zones are which with irrigation?

This is the "unit" the previous owners of our house installed. it has 5 zones.. (little overkill for a .25 acre yard don't you think?)

It has a test function and each zone runs but what I cant track down is all the drip lines and what zone they are tied to?

the people have way more landscaping than I care for but they do have some nice size trees (that wont exist here without irrigation) and there are drip lines to my garden area that I cant figure out how or when they run? I don't want to lose the trees..

I don't think the zones are running the same since we turned it off last year.

I have it set to Auto and it runs similar to last year but I cant seem to figure out which drip lines are attached to which zone, except the front yard, when the front yard sprinkler zone runs the drip lines also run, but it doesn't appear to be the same for the rest of the yard (unless its broke somewhere)

No, 5 zones is not too many for a quarter acre at all. Those can get eaten up real quickly. Front grass, front flowerbed, side slope, back grass, back planted perimeter, etc. I have 0.20 acres and I have 4 zones just for my backyard grass. I wanted 5 heads max per zone. So, I know you said you did this but I'd run your zone 1, set it for 5-10 minutes (not just one minute) because maybe the drip lines take a little longer to get going with the lower pressure. Watch carefully, hopefully you'll see the drip lines activate. Repeat with the next zone. When you turn on a zone with the controller, do you hear the valve open? Check to make sure the controller's wiring is going to the valves. Turn on each of the (5?) valves by hand one at a time if you have to. If you turn a zone on and you still don't see any drip/sprinkler flow, look for water coming up from the ground. You might have a broken pipe. Good luck!

 

[jglavin PE]

If we ever sell the house, the next buyer will be pleased to receive upon closing a bound, categorized O&M manual for all equipment in the house, along with a revit model...

We actually received one of these for our current house (sans Revit BIM). The previous owner was an electrical engineer.

My wife is a Revit drafter so it's sort of a weekend downtime project of ours to model the house. Picked up a set of record docs from the HOA when we moved in. I think it'll come in handy if we decide to renovate, anyway.

 

[Road Guy]

I think I found most of them, the only one I never saw run was the drip lines for our little garden boxes.. I never saw them run last year either but I didn't water them much and everything lived, so they must have worked last year?

I did make a diagram and it was helpful. I am wondering if there is a leak somewhere between the drip supply and wherever it attaches too..

my next house is going to be in the mountains and hopefully not have any of this **** to deal with...

 

[YMZ PE]

If we ever sell the house, the next buyer will be pleased to receive upon closing a bound, categorized O&M manual for all equipment in the house, along with a revit model...

We actually received one of these for our current house (sans Revit BIM). The previous owner was an electrical engineer.

My wife is a Revit drafter so it's sort of a weekend downtime project of ours to model the house. Picked up a set of record docs from the HOA when we moved in. I think it'll come in handy if we decide to renovate, anyway.

We have ours in Civil 3D, but only the structural stuff. If I knew how to use Revit, it would be awesome to model the conduit too, and annotate all the fixtures and fittings. Then I could just pull up the model when I'm shopping at Home Depot, instead of having to carry pieces of hardware around in my purse.

 

[knight1fox3]

^ I should finish my AutoCAD Electrical model of ours. LOL

 

[ptatohed]

I installed the rear yard sprinklers in my last two houses. (Not sure if it is different in other regions but in So Cal, it is common that the developer will provide front landscaping and irrigation and you're on your own for the backyard). I have both home's sprinkler layout in AutoCAD. But it is only a 2D plan view. However, it is color coded per sprinkler zone, lengths/dimensions/offsets are provided, and even the spray pattern of each sprinkler head is shown (R=10' to 15'). Laying out and installing sprinklers is fun. It's like a big Erector Set. The trenching part is no fun though, especially with the hard soil around here.

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

I thought you guys were out of water??

 

[Road Guy]

Last weekend I urinated on the west side of the continental divide

Hope it helps

 

[ptatohed]

I thought you guys were out of water??

I didn't say I was using the sprinklers.

 

[NJmike PE]

I thought you guys were out of water??

I didn't say I was using the sprinklers.

SW, remember to never trust anyone on this board without an av

:true:

 

[Road Guy]

Well, finally figured out how come I never saw that one zone running, LOL.

 

[Lumber Jim]

that'll do it!!