How to Install Garden Irrigation
Instructions
Installing your own irrigation system is easy. It takes all the hassle out of watering the garden and ensures your garden gets the right amount of water. All it takes is a basic understanding of the plants in your garden and a bit of planning. This guide will show you how it’s done.
Planning
Calculate your water pressure
Figuring out your water pressure will indicate your litres per minute (LPM), which dictates how many water lines and watering methods you can plug into and run off your tap.
- Grab your 9 litre bucket
- Turn your tap on full
- Time how long it takes to fill the bucket
- Use this formula to work out your LPM
Time to fill = X
Litres per minute = 9 x 60 ÷ X
Example: Time to fill = 19 seconds
Litres per minute = 9 x 60 ÷ 19 = 540 ÷ 19 = 28.4 LPM
Map out your garden
Measure out your garden and using some graph paper, draw a map of your garden to scale, including where the water source is, and any structures
In this garden we’ll be running water to 4 beds, 2 pots, and the lawn. The same principles will apply to any sized garden.
Select irrigation parts
Use your plan to decide how many of each component, lengths of various pipe and connectors you’ll need for your garden. Here are some common parts you may want to use:
- Pop up sprayers: These are great for lawns and can have a variety of spray patterns to suit your area.
- Sprayers: Used for garden beds, these can be directional or full 360 degree. The height of sprayers can be adjusted with risers. So choose the height that best suits the plants you’ll be watering. Different spray patterns are also available, so choose the one that will deliver water to your plant, and not anywhere else. For example, a 90 degree sprayer is great for the corner of a garden bed, whilst a 360 degree sprayer will suit the middle of a garden bed.
- Drippers: Great for beds, pots and containers. These deliver slow watering to the base of the plant.
- Pipes: These come in various sizes depending on what components you’re using.
• Sprayers require a 13mm pipe.
• Drippers need a 4mm pipe from your main pipe, using an adaptor.
• Pop up lawn sprayers use a 19mm pipe from your water source. - Connectors: 90 degree elbows and T-bars to connect your pipes.
- Clamps: Used to secure these connectors to your pipes.
- Stakes: To fix your pipes in place in the ground.
- Saddle clamps: Used to fix pipes to any wooden surface, like raised garden beds.
Calculate the LPM of your system
Make sure that your water source can handle all the nozzles you’re planning on installing. In our plan we have:
Running on one line will be:
- - 6 x drippers which draw 0.06LPM each.
(6 x 0.06 = 3.6 LPM)
- 6 x sprayers which draw 1.5LPM each.
(6 x 1.5 = 9 LPM)
So the total for this line = 12.6 LPM – which is well under our 28.4 LPM flow rate.
For our lawn we have:
- 1 x 270 degree pop up sprayer which draws 7.5 LPM
- 1 x 360 degree pop up sprayer which draws 10 LPM
This total = 17.5 LPM
Together, that’s 30.1 LPM, which is over the 28.4 LPM flow rate from our water source. This means we will need to run them on 2 separate lines from our tap, so they can be turned on separately. We will also use a timer on each line to make sure they run at alternating times of the day.
Make a final list of components
Finalise your shopping list, and head into store and collect everything you need.
How to
Check items
Group all your items together and make sure you’ve got everything you need.
Lay out lines
Roll out your piping and lay out all your lines above ground and check it’s all going to fit.
Attach hub to taps
Attach your adaptor to the tap. In this case we’ve got a 3-way adaptor. One for the garden bed line, one for the lawn line, and a spare for the garden hose. If you’ve got more than 4 lines you’ll need another hub, or water source.
Connect your pipes together
- Start by attaching pipe adaptors to your hub.
- Measure out each length of pipe you’ll need, and cut them to length.
- Sprayers use a 13mm pipe and drippers can be attached with a 4mm pipe from your main pipe, using an adaptor. Pop up lawn sprayers use a 19mm pipe from your water source. Don’t mix different watering methods on the same lines. Pop-ups should only be on a line with other pop-ups. This is because they have a different flow rate. However, sprayers and drippers can be on the same line as they have similar flow rates.
- Assemble your lines around any obstacles. Use 90 degree elbows, or T-bar joiners when necessary, this will ensure you don’t have any kinks in your hose.
- Before attaching end caps to any of your pipes, run water through the tap to clear out any debris from the pipes.
- Attach end caps.
- Once a section is complete, stake the pipes to the ground. If you’re attaching them to any wooden garden beds, use saddle clamps.
Attach irrigation components
- Space any components apart by the same distance as their spray radius. This ensures that the water spraying from one nozzle should just reach the next one. Overlapping spray patterns will achieve the most even water coverage for your garden.
- Sprayers: Screw in sprayers. Use the multi-tool supplied to make a hole in the pipe, then screw then in. Attach a riser beforehand if you’re using one. A riser is a good idea if you want to bury your pipes. Use a riser stake to keep it in place.
- Drippers: If you’re irrigating a pot, run some 4mm pipe off your main pipe, and attach the stake dripper to the end of it.
- Pop up sprayers: To install our second line in the lawn for a pop up sprinkler. Run a 19mm pipe from your hub to the lawn with the same principles using connectors and clamps where neccessary.
- When you get to the lawn dig a trench about 100mm deep (depending on your sprinkler type) for the 19mm pipe. Make sure you keep the grass, so you can put it back over the pipe when it’s laid down.
- Then run water through the pipe to clear any debris before attaching the end caps.
- Finally, attach the pop up sprinkler to the pipe and fill the trench back in.
- Turn on the water, and make any adjustments to the spray radius of any of your components, ensuring everything’s being watered, and also that you’re not wasting water.
