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Sprinkler System--the Conclusion

© Chris Arnold

As you run your pipe use your "T's" to branch off to the individual sprinkler heads. At an end where you are placing a sprinkler head, do not "hard" pipe this in. In other words, use an elbow that is a "slip" joint on one end, and threaded on the other. With this in place you can use a threaded riser to connect to the elbow and the sprinkler head. This is very important because you can purchase varying lengths of risers. If your sprinkler is too high, just get a shorter riser. In the future, if the height of your lawn or dirt level should rise, you can dig out around the sprinkler head, replace the riser with a longer one, and your all set.

Stick to your plan as far as where your sprinkler heads should go. With the different designs, if one doesn't reach far enough, you can always replace it with one that will. Do not be tempted to "add just one more sprinkler" to a valve. If you overtax your water pressure, it is going to be a bear to fix it.

Try to stick with the one main trench for all of your feed piping. This will save you a lot of digging and refilling. Only dig the side trenches for the individual sprinkler heads. It will cost you a little bit in additional pipe, but you will save a lot in time.

Work hard to keep dirt out of the pipe. You can chase dirt for a long time once it is trapped inside the system. You will be cleaning sprinkler heads for quite a while. One way that you can clean dirt out of each line, but you will probably get wet, is to remove the actual sprinkler sprayer head and crank the water on. The blast should get a good portion of the dirt out of the line. You will most likely need to do this for each sprinkler head.

Once everything is glued and in place, test each line before you fill in the trench. Look for any last leaks in the tubing. If none is found you can fill the trenches in and put the sod back. Once this is done it is time to adjust the sprinkler range. A good way to do this is to use a garbage can lid as a shield. Get one stage running and see how the sprinklers and working. If a sprinkler needs adjusting, use the garbage can lid to shield the water off of you and adjust the sprinkler head until you get the level you need. On the sprayer sprinklers this is accomplished by adjusting the small screw on the top of the head. You will need a small, thin standard screwdriver for this. On the larger, rotating sprinkler heads they usually have an adjusting screw that can often times be adjusted by hand.

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