Adding a New Zone To Your System

You may already have an existing sprinkler system, but are needing to upgrade it or add an extension to cover a new area that you'd like to landscape. Sometimes this can be as easy as tapping in a new sprinkler head or two, but other times this may require having to add an entire new zone.

Of course several different factors will determine if you need a whole new sprinkler zone or not. First of all is the actual size of the new landscape area where you are needing sprinkler coverage. Can this area be covered by just one spray head or one rotor head? If so, does the existing zone nearby have enough water volume and pressure to carry one or two more sprinkler heads?

If the new area of landscape is a large section, then you'll most likely need to add a new zone or maybe more to properly cover the area. Adding a new sprinkler zone is not too difficult, but how you exactly go about it will also depend on what kind of automatic sprinkler system you have.

If your existing lawn irrigation system uses an index valve, then this may require changing the index valve to a larger one which can carry one or two more zones. For example you may currently have a four zone index valve, but will need to upgrade to a six zone index valve (with a 5 or 6 zone cam depending on if you are adding one or two more zones). Or you may get lucky and only need to change out the cam. If your system has a four or six zone index valve, but your system actually only has one zone less (three or five zones respectively) then you are in luck and will just need to upgrade the cam to allow water to flow to your current blank zone.

If you have a digital timer and electric valve system then you will need to tap into the mainline, extend out some pipe, and add a new valve or two (one for each new zone of course). Also you will probably have to add a new multi-strand sprinkler wire from the new valves up into to the timer to power the valves from the timer/controller. The exception here is if your irrigation system's current multi-strand sprinkler wire has spare wires to use. You can usually tell this by looking inside the back panel of the timer where the valve wires are connected to the station terminals in the timer and looking to see if there are spare wires. You'll then need to locate the spare wires in one of the existing valves. You can then splice and tie into the spare wires from the point where you'll be tapping into the mainline to add your new valves.

As always, a good design will start with proper sprinkler head layout. Make sure to have the sprinkler heads placed where you will get overlapping or what's known as "head-to-head" coverage. This helps ensure even precipitation and prevents dry or "hot spots". Once you know how many sprinkler heads your new lawn or landscape area will need, you can then determine the water volume demand. You'll do this by choosing and counting gallons per minute according to the types of sprinkler heads and nozzles. Then you can determine how many new sprinkler zones you will need.

A helpful tip here or shortcut is to count the gallons per minute being used on one of your existing sprinkler zones. This will be a good indication of how much water you can use per zone.

My ebook on building a new sprinkler systems will help you better understand these concepts. Also, if you are just looking for an irrigation contractor to do this work for you, please feel free to call me if you live in my service area in Northwest Florida (Niceville, Valparaiso, Bluewater Bay, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Crestview). I will come out and determine what needs to be done and give you a free price quote.

Scott
Advanced Irrigation Florida
Design & Build Your Sprinkler System

How To Clean Your PVC Well

I wrote a short blog post in 2007 about how to clean a pvc well (Clean PVC Well), but I just re-read it and I want to add a few more points.

The process that I'm referring to is for cleaning out irrigation wells that supply water to a lawn and landscape sprinkler system, not for drinking water wells. Drinking water wells have specific types of cleaner and you must also test that water to make sure it is safe. I'm only referring to irrigation wells in this and the previous blog posts.

Next I wanted to describe to you another step that we've added from years of experience in cleaning irrigation wells. After you let the cleaner sit for a day or so, and have already tried to spin or move the 2" well casing, there is another process that I'd like to tell you about that has worked wonders.

Use a 20 foot stick of thin-wall 3/4" pipe and add a hose connection piece to one end. This is so that you can hook up a standard water hose to the pipe. Then at the oppisite end of the 20 foot stick of pipe, you will add a 'boring' tip or 'jet' tip. Both the pvc to hose connection and boring tip can be found at Ace hardware or most any hardware stores.

Actually you may need to add another 10 to 20 feet of 3/4" pipe prior to installing the jet tip, depending on the depth of your well. The main thing you want to do here is to reach the bottom of your well and then clean the bottom 5 to 10 feet of well casing. The reason for doing this is because the bottom 5 to 10 feet is going to be where the well screen is installed.

The screen is where the water is pulled through and sand and other debris is kept out. Over the years different minerals and just plain old 'gunk' build up on the screen. Using running water and pressure for the jet tip head, you can rub the pipe against the edge of the screen and use the water to clean off the screen! This has proved out to be a very valuable technique for unclogging well screens and improving the overall yield of the well.

We have seen improvements such as going from 12 gallons per minute before cleaned, to producing over 30 gallons per minute after being cleaned! It is amazing. My old partner actually didn't want me sharing this info with anyone, especially possible competition or other businesses, but if you're lucky enough to find my website, then I'm not scared to share the information. They'll still be plenty of business to go around and if I can help you save money or teach others how to do this so they can make money, then that makes me feel good to share.

Always make sure to measure the flow of your well & pump before and after so that you accurately know what kind of improvement you've made. The process described works best for shallow wells with horizontal, centrifugal pumps. Vertical jet pumps with deeper wells can also be cleaned this way, but you must remove the drop pipe and foot valve first. Actually with Jet pumps it is very common for the jet and the end of the drop pipe, right before the foot valve, to get clogged with debris. This is one of the main causes for limited flow on a jet pump setup. The other major cause of reduced flow with a jet pump is the actual pump itself.

As always, good luck and feel free to contact me with questions!

Scott
Automatic Lawn Sprinklers
Advanced Irrigation Florida

March Spring Irrigation Checkup - New Landscape Plans

Last month I wrote about getting your landscape irrigation system ready for the system by doing your annual spring maintenance or tuneup. Check it out here:
Spring Irrigation Tuneup

I've written similar blog posts in previous years outlining many of the details that go into this type of 'checkup'. Here's another article I wrote several years ago for you to refer to: Summer Sprinkler Tips

With the exception of a few cold nights and slightly chilly days the past few weeks, Spring has started to show as we've experienced some days with high temperatures in the low to mid 60s! The current 10 day outlook forecast is looking good for North Florida as next week we'll be hitting 65 and 66 degrees with clear & sunny skies!

Pretty soon the grass will be greening up and the brown, dormant lawns and landscapes will be fading away and back to our typical 9 months or so of beautiful green plants, lush lawns, and colorful flowers.

It's not too early and never too late to get your lawn sprinkler system prepared and fully functional to help provide adequate and uniform water to your yard's landscape. If you are like many people, you are probably planning out new home and yard projects which may include modifications or improvements to your yard.

It's typical this time of year for people to re-sod or lay new grass. This is a great time of year to do that, but please don't make the mistake that many people often do: Not thoroughly checking your lawn sprinklers before laying new grass or planting new shrubs! I experience many frantic calls from people freaking out because they just spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on new grass and/or landscape material and then find out that their sprinkler system is not working properly!

Mistakes happen, so I am understanding to those who make this mistake and I do my best to accommodate them and provide service as quickly as possible, but there are times where we get so busy that we do have a waiting list and that's the last thing you want to hear when you have 10 pallets of St. Augustine grass laying in your yard and there is no rain in the foreseeable forecast!

If you are reading this before you've planned or started this year's landscape projects, then great! Please check-up and repair your irrigation system prior to ordering and installing new grass, plants, or shrubs. Either do it yourself or call a professional company, like Advanced Irrigation Systems, to inspect and get your system up to par. Make sure to let your irrigation tech know exactly what type of landscape material you'll be using and where it will be. You want to make sure that you have proper coverage over the entire area.

The warm weather is coming. Alright everybody...it's time to get to work with our Spring cleaning, Spring Tune-ups, and home projects. I've got a lot of work to do on my home landscape this year myself and I'm actual excited about it! I've just been waiting for this cold weather to go away. Get your sprinkler system updated today. If you live or have a home inside Northwest Florida located in Niceville, Valparaiso, Bluewater Bay, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Crestview, or Navarre then give me a call!

Scott Young
Advanced Irrigation Systems
850-729-7110
Residential Irrigation System Design

How To Find a Lost or Hidden Valve

On your automatic lawn sprinkler system you have a separate valve for each section or zone. If your system is a digital timer and electric valve system, then you will sooner or later have to deal with one or more different maintenance issues that arise.

When any of these issues happen, you'll need to replace the valve entirely or replace parts of it. To do this, you'll obviously need to know where your valves or at. The valves are normally placed in valve boxes. On residential systems you'll see one of two types of setups. You may have a manifold system where all the valves are placed into one or two rectangular boxes about 18" in length.

Or you may see a setup where each valve is in its' own round or circle shaped valve box. The common size valve box for 1" valves is a 6" diameter box. 1&1/2" valves are normally placed in 10" diameter round boxes. These boxes are normally green or black, with a green or black lid.

If you know where your valves are then great! If not, your first mission is to locate the problem valve or all the valves for that matter so that you know where they are at! A very common thing that happens, is for grass to grow over the lids and cover or hide the boxes. Or the valves end up in a shrub or flower bed and get covered up with mulch.

You can find your valves in a couple of different ways. The first and most obvious thing to do is to walk around your yard to see if you can spot them. If this doesn't work, then it is time to get to work. You can poke around with a shovel, but this could take hours or days...literally. A big timer saver is a machine called a "valve location machine" or "valve locater" I like to call them.

These types of devices cost from $600 - $1,000, so it probably doesn't make sense for you to buy one if you don't do irrigation for a living. The next best thing you can do is to rent one. An average price to rent a valve locater is about $50 - $75 per day. This machine will send a tone or signal through the sprinkler wire and then you trace the tone to the valve with a separate 'wand'. The wand is kind of like a metal detector in a way. I've had people observe me searching for valves before and thought I was using a metal detector to look for rings or loose change!

This machine is great, but it does take patience and skill in order to use efficiently. You could get lucky and find your valves pretty quick, or you could find your self walking circles around the yard getting very frustrated! The machine is only as good as its' user. Also it is not perfect as it does tend to pick up interference from phone, electrical, and cable lines in the ground.

If you are the type of person that likes a good challenge, then go for it! If you would rather not spend your entire weekend (or longer) hunting or searching for lost valves, then you may just want to pick up the phone and call your local irrigation professional. I've been doing this job for over ten years, and I still run into challenges and difficult searches that take longer than I anticipate. As a matter of fact I'm in the middle of a job that I didn't finish today at a town-home complex where I'm searching for valves. I've found 6 out of 10 electric valves. But I still have two more bad valves and guess what...of course they are part of the four that I haven't found yet!

Scott
Do It Yourself Lawn Sprinklers
Florida Irrigation Company

New Irrigation Services Coming Soon To My Site

On this particular site for the past 6 years, my main focus has been selling my e-book, How To Build Your Own Automatic Lawn Sprinkler System. This e-book has done very well and helped out thousands of people design and build their own residential automatic irrigation systems. I've enjoyed the whole process of developing the book, the website, and answering sprinkler system questions over the years.

Lately I've been thinking about some other services that I can offer my visitors in addition to just offering the e-book. Many of the people who find my site are just looking for sprinkler parts to buy, which I do offer through a third-party-website, others are looking to get their questions answered to help them properly diagnose and fix their existing irrigation systems. I've answered thousands of emails over the years giving people free advice and helping them solve their sprinkler problems and it has been rewarding just knowing that I've helped.

Answering all of these questions definitely takes time and it has led me to come up with the idea of offering a paid sprinkler troubleshooting service via email and possibly phone. With a paid service I can justify dedicating more time to helping people solve their irrigation maintenance issues. I'm not saying that I won't still answer basic questions for free, but some issues that I've dealt with in the past have been slightly complex and required multiple emails back & forth to help finally solve the problem. Also many times I have to request additional information and pictures to help in diagnosing the sprinkler problem.

So to make this process smoother and more efficient I will be creating a sprinkler troubleshooting and maintenance form which asks certain questions upfront and allows people to upload pictures to help describe the specific issue that they are trying to resolve. I have not decided on a final price or full details of exactly what I will provide yet, but it is an idea that I've ran by a few people and they thought it was a very good idea. I know that I will make the cost less than a typical service call charge from your local irrigation contractor so that it will help you save money, which is one of the whole reasons of you wanting to do it yourself in the first place!

I will be designing the form and modifying the order page starting this week and I hope to have the program fully functional and implemented within the next 2-3 weeks.

On top of that new service, I will also be offering another new service that I've provided free in the past and many people frequently ask me to provide. It will be a sprinkler system design service. My design will come complete with a specific materials list and also the checklists that I offer as bonuses on my website when buying my sprinkler e-book.

I just have not been able to provide this service to as many people that have asked for it because of the time and energy it takes just became too much for me to do it for free anymore. My book provides great instructions for people to do this themselves, but there are still others who end up wanting me to personally design their system anyway. I would love to offer and provide this service to more people and by charging a fair price I will be able to do that. I have not yet decided on a final price for this irrigation system design and plan package, but it will be more than the irrigation troubleshooting service because of the amount of work that goes into it. However, it will still save you hundreds to thousands of dollars compared to hiring an irrigation professional to install it.

Some people may already know about Rainbird's free design service and I encourage you to use them if you wish. My service will be different from Rainbird's as I will be desinging the system according to my plan and specs. I'll actually be using the "simplified design" method outlined in my e-book. My design plan is normally a lot easier for the average "non-irrigation" person to follow, and my way normally always saves a ton of cash on parts/materials because of my design method, but you will still get a high quality system, including even coverage and matched precipitation rates across all zones.

I will keep you posted and make an announcement when I release these two new services. On another note, the look & design of my Blog may be changing within the next month due to Blogger.com changing the way that my blog is published to my server. They are doing away with FTP option and want me to host my content on one of their Google servers, which I'm not too happy about. So, I may be moving to a different service to publish my lawn sprinkler blog and with that move comes a new layout and look. Sorry to add this in at the end, it's a whole other issue...but I wanted everyone to be aware so that you're not shocked if you come to my blog one day and everything looks totally different! Don't worry though, all of my old blog posts going back to 2004 will all still be available for you to read!

That's it for tonight! I've got a busy day fixing sprinklers tomorrow...in the cold weather..brrr!

Scott
Landscape Irrigation System Design
Advanced Irrigation Systems, Inc.