5 gpm is a lot for a home water system. The pipes in the house are
generally 1/2", although 3/4" pipe is sometimes found. Take a gallon jug
and see how much time it takes to fill it from your hose cock. I can get
around 5 gpm through mine (12 seconds/gallon). My kitchen sink will
produce around 2 gpm and the bathtub will do about 4.

Take a garden sprinkler and put it in a 5 gallon bucket. My guess is
that it would take significantly longer than a minute to fill the
bucket. This would be a useful exercise to do anyway, since you need to
know the rate if you want to control the amount of water your garden
gets. A 50 x 50 garden (2500 sq. ft.) needs about 1550 gallons (US) to
approximate 1" of rain. (1" over 2500 sqft = 208 cubic ft, about 7.5
gallons/cubic ft [Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 37th ed.]). This is
one reason why drip irrigation is so popular with large growers. The
water can be applied to the crop, and not to the weeds between the crop.
You can possibly reduce your water useage by a factor of 10.

A 50 x 50 garden could be covered by one sprinkler moved around on a
regular basis. I've done it on a 75 x 100 garden, but it takes several days.




Bob wrote:
5 gpm isn't very much for a sprinkler system. If he's just running one
sprinkler at a time, 1" might do it.

Bob