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Lawn Sprinklers for Small Lawns.

Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
edited October 2021 in Tools and techniques
I've always disliked the time I had to spend watering the garden.  (Not that for much of the year it's necessary)

For that reason I've a leaky hose system that covers pretty much the whole of the back garden borders. There's a dedicated alkathene pipe fed water supply from a tap outside our kitchen window, buried under the patio which  comes up half way down the side border.

Two Hoselock three-way valves enable me to water the whole of the border, or any one, or two of the three sections. I've also an automatic hoselock gismo that I  can use to determine how much water I want to use. Sort of "set and forget."

But leaky hoses are no good for lawns.

So I installed a couple of "pop up" sprinklers nine years ago.

It's nothing beyond the abilities of the average DIYer.

I bought the heads on eBay for £7 each, (surprisingly I see they are no more expensive now) plus a roll of speed-fit pipe and connectors from a plumbers wholesaler.

I already had a control valve which was part of our old central heating system and some sand and cement in the garage  to remake the path.

Total cost of the system around fifty quid.

Just a question of digging narrow wedges out of the lawn to lay the pipes.

The system runs  just on the mains pressure,  so i'd guess the maximum number of heads that would work is three. The pressure of the water has to be enough to raise the return springs.
Two were enough for our small  lawn. The heads are adjustable so you can blank off anything from ten degrees upwards, necessary for us, to avoid watering the summerhouse.
It's important that the supply meets that to the heads, midway so the pressure to each is the same.
This was my "dry run" or should I say "wet run" to check it worked before I installed it.



It took a few hours in an afternoon to install and the scars in the lawn disappeared after a couple of weeks. As it's speed-fit plastic pipe and the heads are "open ended," it's not susceptible  to frost damage. I can leave it for months, then turn it on and it works straight away. It has worked faultlessly for all this time.

"Might need it again for a few days next year!"



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Posts

  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 13,752
    Do lawns ever need watering?
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
    punkdoc said:
    Do lawns ever need watering?


    Sorry, I can't be bothered to answer  such a pointless question.

    Obviously nothing to interest you here, move on.
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 13,752
    Don't be so bloody rude.

    Nothing to do with you what posts I reply to, AND it is a pertinent question, many people would say that watering domestic lawns is an environmental catastrophe, but you probably don't care about that.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
    edited October 2021
    punkdoc said:
    Don't be so bloody rude.

    Nothing to do with you what posts I reply to, AND it is a pertinent question, many people would say that watering domestic lawns is an environmental catastrophe, but you probably don't care about that.


    "Many people would say," a lot of things, you seem to. Nuch of it confrontational

    My original post wasn't directed at you, but as usual your response didn't suprise me, you look for things to criticise.

    In the UK, much of the water from that put on gardens returns to the water table.

    What is a problem, is the number of gardens that get paved over so rainwater and water used washing cars etc., doesn't return to the water table, it ends up in the drains.
    Lawn sprinlers make better use of the water, giving an eaven spread, where hosepipes can put too much water in one place.

    As are leaky hoses, with their slow release.

    So for most of the time watering gardens is  not an environmental problem let alone a catastophe. When it temporarily becomes one  (a problem), we get  hosepipe bans. Then  they get rescinded and we all move on.





  • LynLyn Posts: 22,004
    Never watered grass,  ok I suppose if you’ve got the money to waste on your water rates. 
    All our rain water is saved for garden watering should it be necessary. 

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
    edited October 2021
    Lyn said:
    Never watered grass,  ok I suppose if you’ve got the money to waste on your water rates. 
    All our rain water is saved for garden watering should it be necessary. 


    Well, that's your choice,  I wouldn't criticise you if you did.

    As I mentioned in my post, it isn't necessary for much of the year, but I have given myself the facility for any time I think it is.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 8,909
    I don't water the grass either. (unless it gets some overspill from watering newly-planted areas of border). I suspect the pop-up sprinklers would get bunged up with limescale well before 9 years here, if they weren't cleaned and dried after each use, which wouldn't be very practical.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
    edited October 2021
    JennyJ said:
    I don't water the grass either. (unless it gets some overspill from watering newly-planted areas of border). I suspect the pop-up sprinklers would get bunged up with limescale well before 9 years here, if they weren't cleaned and dried after each use, which wouldn't be very practical.
    Thanks for that Jenny. You are right in some respects, but limescale won't adhere to Speed-fit plastic pipes.  We're in a softwater area so we don't get limescale anyway.

    The filter heads have removable filters (as all will) so they can be cleaned whenever it is considered necessary.

    I only started this post as I thought it might be of interest to people with small gardens and provided some practical advice on how to do it.

    My video is nine years old and has had nearly 6000 hits and only one (positive) comment in all that time. "More may be coming soon."

    During that, time I've posted it on other gardening message boards where the advice has either been accepted or ignored.
    Fine by me.

    I didn't anticipate that it would get turned into an "environmental debate," but that's Gardners' World for you.
    It just makes me smile.

  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 8,909
    Each to their own :). I'm seriously envious of anyone who has soft water (I grew up in Sheffield where it was lovely, and I still miss it). I'm sure I would forget to clean the filters, or not bother.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 347
    JennyJ said:
    Each to their own :). I'm seriously envious of anyone who has soft water (I grew up in Sheffield where it was lovely, and I still miss it). I'm sure I would forget to clean the filters, or not bother.

    I was born in Surrey and my parents home had "London Water" so scale was ever present, it could get to over an inch thick in a Russell Hobbs stainless steel kettle.
    Here in south Manchester, the water is so soft, that in the days when you needed to top up car batteries, you could do it straight from the tap.
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