Irrigation system has become more and more a fundamental garden design practice, and in many cases essential, in order to achieve quantitative and qualitatively productive outputs to make farm management economically viable. But since irrigation requires large volumes of water, and this becomes increasingly scarce and costly, even in environmental terms, the company’s irrigation management needs to be implemented in order to maximize its efficiency not only by reducing losses but also by optimizing the delivery in terms of fashion, places, times and volumes. Lastly, the company’s management of irrigation should also be implemented at the lowest cost, which at least in our country means mainly with the low use of manpower. All this requires the irrigation system and its exercise, so it is all welcome to contribute to the concrete situation of each farm (culture, climate, soil, quality of water, etc.).The irrigation system is properly designed and directed.
Whether you are going to build an irrigation system for your garden or terrace and want to avoid the mistakes made by most of people and even by some professional installers landscape architects and landscape designers, spend a few minutes reading this blog post by Best Landscape Design and in a short time you will be able to clear your ideas while saving time and money.
Water is the essential element for plant life, so it is good to have in your garden a good irrigation system, effective to irrigate all the plants and flowers in each corner. For this reason, I recommend choosing the layout of the plants already in the early design stages of the outer space, so that an optimal final result can be obtained.
On the market there are several types of sprinklers that irrigate with different angles (90°, 180°, 270°, 360 ° or otherwise). The suggestion is to choose, along with the trusted gardener, the irrigator suitable for each area, according to the plants placed in it.
Water pressure is often the main problem for installing an irrigation system. Before installing it, make sure that there is good water pressure, which must be neither too low nor too high. The plant operator will have to account not only on the available water pressure, but also on the type of water supply, the water and electricity localization, the area exposure, the obstacles and paved areas, the presence of water winds that dry the soil, depressions or depressions of the soil, blooms and tree trunks that do not hit with the jets of water.
An irrigation system can be both automatic (with solenoid valves) or manual (manual taps control). Today, the most preferred one is the automatic one, which allows you to control it through a timer and comes into operation even when you are not home. It should also be said that the automatic irrigation system foresees a diversification for each zone through the solenoid valves that will be connected to the control unit from which the plant will be run (this costs about 1500 €). The operation of the plant at this point is very simple: the control unit will open the solenoid valve (it opens and closes according to the electric impulses it receives from the control unit) which will allow the water pressure to flow to the underground pipes in sequence to the sprinklers.
IRRIGATION SYSTEM: THE WATER FLOW
The serious mistake made is not to measure the water flow of your water supply network or to ignore the water flow of the pump installed in the well or in the reservoir before starting the irrigation system garden. The fundamental element is not the “water pressure” but “water flow”.
Knowing the water flow is crucial to be able to best configure the irrigation system and manage the division into areas of this.
The first step is to take the measurements of your garden and draw on a sheet the areas to be irrigated, if there are elements that divide your green areas like paths, gazebo etc. into your garden design. Highlights the lawn areas (rainwater irrigation), hedges and flower beds (drop irrigation).
If you are about to build an irrigation system for your garden or terrace and you want to avoid the serious mistake made by 70% of people and even by some professional installers,
spend a few minutes reading this manual and in a short time you will be able to clear your ideas saving time and money.
IRRIGATION SYSTEM: THE SERIOUS ERROR
What is the serious mistake made? It is to not measure the water flow rate of your water network or not to take into account the water flow rate of the pump installed in the well or in the water collection tank, before starting construction of the irrigation system of the garden. We are not talking about “water pressure” but “water flow”.
Why is it so important to know the flow of water? Knowing the flow of water is essential to be able to better configure the irrigation system and manage the division in sectors of this.
Before explaining what it is and how to easily and quickly calculate the water flow of your home, let’s see how to start your work in a concrete way:
1) Take the measurements of your garden and draw on a sheet the areas to be irrigated, if there are elements that divide your green areas (paths, gazebos, etc.) bring them back to your design. Highlight lawn areas (rain irrigation), hedges and flower beds (drip irrigation).
2) The time has come to measure the water flow of your system.
WHAT IS THE WATER FLOW?
Leaving aside the academic explanations that in our case are not helpful, the flow of water that interests us to better realize your irrigation system, is the quantity (liters) of water that comes out in a minute from the head of a pipe.
HOW TO MEASURE THE WATER FLOW OF YOUR HOME
Whether your future irrigation system will be connected directly to the residential network, whether it will be powered by a pump connected to the well or to a tank, if you want to quickly and easily measure the water flow of your water system, what you need to do it’s simply this:
Connect a pipe to the point (tap, tank, well etc.) from where your irrigation system will start. The diameter of the tube should not be less than the diameter of the source tube (from where you take the water). Go with the head of the pipe in the farthest part of the garden. Take a container (tank, large bucket, mini tank etc.) and fill it with the pipe you previously brought there. Open the tap at the most for 1 minute and after a minute, watch how much water has entered the container. If you have a small container, measure for 30 “and multiply the result by 2. The ideal would be to measure the flow rate of your system at the same time you start irrigation because, in case you use water coming from public or condominium networks, their flow can vary during the day depending on the ‘schedule. We advise you to avoid irrigation during the sunniest hours, the ideal would be at sunset or dawn.
The amount of water that comes into your container in a minute represents the amount of water you need to take into account to make the most of your garden’s irrigation system. Example – if there are 80 liters of water in your container, it means that the water flow rate of your system is 80 liters per minute (80 l / min)
If, on the other hand, there are 30 liters of water in your container, it means that the water flow of your system is 30 liters per minute (30 l / min) and so on …
A valid alternative to the “container filling” system, it is the instantaneous reading instrument of the flow rate (tachometer). This will also be useful later to keep the water consumption of your garden’s irrigation system under control.
In our “Example” we will consider a water flow rate of 35 l / min.
HOW TO MEASURE THE WATER PRESSURE OF YOUR HOME It is important to underline that, for the design of irrigation systems, the pressure that most interests is not the static pressure (closed system pressure) but the dynamic one, that is, when the plant is working.
Our calculation will only give us an idea of the size of the available pressure, to immediately assess whether the sprinklers chosen are suitable for our plant.
After measuring the water flow of your water system, you can measure the pressure of your system quickly and easily, proceeding like this:
Connect a pressure gauge to the end of the pipe you used to fill the cistern for calculating the water flow. If you want to know how it is done and how much it costs a manometer click here. Open the water tap as far as it will go and identify the number and the point on which the black gauge on your pressure gauge has been positioned. The number and the point on which the black pressure gauge hand is positioned represents the pressure of your water system. Example – if the hand has stopped at number 2 it means that the pressure of your system is 2 bar.
If instead the hand stopped at the number 2.5, it means that the pressure of your system is 2.5 bar and so on …
In our “Example” we will consider a water system pressure equal to 2.2 bar.
3) Choose sprinklers to use for your garden’s irrigation system.
The choice of sprinklers depends on the size of the area to be irrigated:
To cover a distance up to 4m you can use a static irrigator. To cover a distance from 4 to 9.5m you can use a dynamic sprinkler. To cover a distance of 4.9 to 14m you can use a dynamic sprinkler. in our “Example” we will use dynamic sprinklers for area A and static sprinklers for area B:
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