"Pete Stephenson" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Matt" wrote:

I bought a gilmour sprinkler that advertised 5800 sq.ft coverage (80'
diam) and puts down 1/4" of water in 3 hours.

Hmm...that's it? Only 1/4" of water in 3 hours? That seems to be very,
very little. I'm getting large puddles of standing water after only two
hours of watering.

The sprinklers I'm using right now are Orbit/Sunmate Zinc Impact
Sprinkler with Zinc Spike Base (http://tinyurl.com/2kcch)


My timers can only be set to 2 hours at a time. I'm rotating the
sprinklers around a bit to get different coverage area (and so the
water in one area can percolate a bit). There's a large amount of
overlap, but my main concern is maximum area wetness, rather than a
specific amount of water in a particular area.

Once I get coverage, then I can refine positions and timing to ensure
that the areas are getting the watering they're needing. I've also seen
gear-moved, water-driven sprinklers (http://tinyurl.com/yqxme) that
spray in circular patterns like impact sprinklers, but with no noise
and seem to be less succeptible to spike-bending (I just bent a spike
today). It's either that, or some impact sprinklers with some
heavy-duty triple-spiked bases that can soak 100'-wide areas. Those
seem to be a better investment, considering the type of soil we have
here (hard and rocky). If most impact sprinklers only put out 1/4" of
water per 3 hours, that's 12 hours of watering in order to lay down an
inch of water.


I have the extra large, triple-spike based sprinklers. it advertises to put
down 1/4" in 2 hours. (50% more than the 80'diam. sprinklers) They cost
around $25-$30 each at Lowes.
Here is an url to this sprinkler
http://www.gilmour.com/Watering_Hose...geCoverage.asp
Running it two times a week for 4 hours will get you your 1" of water a
week. My soil has a lot of clay in it, so I can't run this sprinkler any
longer than about 30 mins at a time before I get major puddling. I have
timers set that run the sprinkler 4 times a day for 30 mins each time. I am
still trying to get my lawn established, so I am watering alot right now.
Once it is established, I will back off the timers to running twice a day
for 30 mins.

It wouldn't hurt to buy a rain guage and place it in the lawn. That way you
can keep track of exactly how much water the grass is getting.
Matt


It's rather odd, as near the command-staff buildings, they have lush,
green grass growing year-round, and they don't seem to have in-ground
sprinklers...and you never see the sprinklers going, so they're not
running them for 12 hours at a time. I wonder what's going on.

Are there any recommended sprinkler brands for quality and durability?
The Orbit/Sunmate ones seem rather nice, but the zinc spike of one of
them bent 45° today, rendering it useless. I'm looking for something
heavy-duty with a beefy base (a sled-type base that won't tip over is
acceptable, but all the ones I've seen have tipped easily), preferably a
metal impact head (plastic is ok, but only if it's durable...non-impact
continuious stream gear-moved water-powered heads like the one I linked
to above are also acceptable, if people have more information on them),
and the ability to be chained in series (though this isn't of utmost
importance, it'd still be convienient). Oh, and high water volume and
long-range stream. I must admit that I'm relatively new to lawn care,
and if I'm going to invest (even if less than a hundred dollars) in
sprinklers and other materials, I might as well get the good stuff.

Cheers!

--
Pete Stephenson
HeyPete.com