I can do a lot of it myself but for some reason I can’t figure out where to begin.
I have to repair the work of the previous owner who thought she was a landscape architect after taking a class. I want the front yard to consist of ground cover and xeriscaping so I want to swap out the broke-ass sprinkler head and hose (that’s right - not buried PVC) for a soaker hose system that is in-ground. My question is how do I deal with all the old hose I suspect is under the walkway and driveway (or am I missing something obvious). Tying the new soaker hose into the zone system shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
The back yard is a whole different issue. I will be tearing out pompous grass and thistle and assorted bushes and rototiliing the whole thing and replacing it with sod, paths and plants. It is a combination of PVC pipe and that hose thing and the new yard layout win necessitate a new sprinkler system in the back with zones (part lawn, part plants. I’m assuming the order is tear out the old system, rototill, install soaker hoses (would those work under the new sod?) and plant.
So the question is am I missing anything? It seems that except for tying everything into the zone system it should be relatively easy. Do I really need to worry about the pressure and gpm on a soaker system if I’m reasonably smart about the size of my zones? Am I right that I can get soaker hoses that are in ground at root level? Are there quick and easy primers on how far away to put the hoses and how to install them into the system?
I can’t answer all your questions, only comment. Our property has a PVC system that is very wasteful since we no longer have grass on much of it and only need spot watering. I’ve removed a number of the sprinkler heads and attached a surface perf line to take care of those areas. Pressure doesn’t seem to be an issue. I suspect that it will crack more easily because of the few times we get below freezing, but it’s easily replaced and cheap. I’d probably opt for abandon-in-place for the old perf hose unless it’s easily removed.
I don’t have any experience with buried soaker hoses, but I think they’re meant to be on the surface–I think buried soaker hoses wouldn’t work as intended. Also, I tried using 1/4" soaker hoses on my herb garden and they became useless almost immediately due to mineral crusting. So consider the hardness of your water, though possibly this is less of a problem with 3/4" hoses.
My approach was to run 1/2" tubing around the front and back, and have branching 1/4" tubes with the appropriate attachments depending what I wanted to water–sprinklers, sprayers, drippers, etc. Rather than zones, I had the whole system on at once and tried to modulate water delivery based on attachments. But depending how you lay out your garden zones may be easier, for mine it wasn’t.
The tubing system was on the surface, not buried–that made it easier to modify. But it was almost entirely covered by mulch and gravel.
Something to watch out for is trees. I didn’t take into account how much water some trees needed–even well-established lower-water types. Turns out that the deluge from the old sprinklers was pretty important. I was easily able to see the effect–every house on my old block had similar trees planted in the easement. After I tore out the grass and stopped using the sprinklers, my tree went from being the biggest and fullest to one of the scrawniest. I had to jury-rig a sort of ugly way to deliver a lot of water.
Another vote for on-ground for beds at least. You can add additional lengths of tubing where you need as you add bushes, or discover that something needs more water than you expected, or remove tubing if you decide an area needs less. We use it for the beds in front and back and it’s been very good. Cut down on water usage a lot. Also withstood freezing just fine (including 2 weeks around 10 degrees, even the ground was freezing).
Above ground is also easier to repair, should you need to. Below ground involves digging to find the problem zone.
I should add that I live in SoCal where freezing is not an issue, but I do know people with drip systems in the Northeast–though they are small so maybe the tubing just gets packed away in the fall.
The “native plants” types around here are horrified by pampas grass which is not native and apparently will grow like wildfire if not contained, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen fields of unchecked pampas grass. It’s not like kudzu.
By the way, Saint Cad, where are you located? If in SoCal I can suggest some resources.
Also WRT to the plumbing questions, I know that my local Home Depot and Lowe’s periodically give free seminars on this kind of thing–obviously they want you to buy stuff as a result, but it might be a good tutorial in say whether to tear out old irrigation or leave it in place.
If you are doing drip irrigation and running 1/4" tubing off the black 1/2" polyethylene main lines, keep the tubing out of the sun. While the system is off, the sun can heat the water in the tubing to at least 165 F. I have actually measured this. What can happen is that when the system comes on, that hot water can soften the poly so that the pressure can blow the dripper off the tube. I cover the tubes with mulch.
Also, if you have to do a lot of drip irrigation, get the proper tools to connect everything up. Get the squeeze-type tool to punch holes in the 1/2" poly. Home Depot has a good supply of drip irrigation gear; Lowes not so much.
I am a licensed irrigator and an old gardener, so old and smart now I have even been referred to as a pompous grass w/o benefit of gr. I live on 2 acres and have big areas of turf, various shrub beds and perennial gardens, a vegetable garden, and 60 trees of various types I planted. What I don’t have is a sprinkler system. Here’s some advice. 1st, never till, never ever. Dig or scrape off all unwanted plants, then bring in as much good topsoil as you can. If you can give turf room to grow roots 5 inches deep you will almost never need to water it, especially if you pay attention to grading so your water stays where you or heaven put it. All planting areas should get several inches of compost rich soil mix over the native soil, don’t till it just plant through it and let it mix as you go. Mulching is over rated, spend that money on beer instead. You’ll have to water with a hose a bit, but 45 minutes in the early evening squirting water at your beautiful plants is experience not to be lost.
Question along the lines of this; Would pipe insulating foam helps the PVC tubes if they are above ground to prevent freezing? Doubt it, but thought I should ask, I’m interested in this subject as well.
If you haven’t already ordered, I received the following advice why not to go with sub soil drip: 1. the lines need to be in the root depth of your grass, which is the same depth you aerate the grass at. All the hard work will be lost when the aerator punctures the drip line. 2. The spacing of the drop line holes and between drip lines is quite sensitive to your soil type (for drainage). If you get any of this wrong you only find out when you have strips of lawn dying. A pop-up spray system avoids these issues and is less pipe to install, but uses more water, requires more pressure to work and can’t be combined with other drip systems on the same zone (like a flower bed).
I agree that I wouldn’t go below ground for all the reasons given. If you really need area watering, like for grass, use pop-ups. If you’re looking for low-water plants, a drip system is what you want (and will have to actively manage as the plants grow and you change your garden.)
You could use area sprayers based off a drip system where you want to have a mix of grass and other plants. You’d have to experiment a bit with the placement of the sprayers to make sure you’re covering the grass while putting the sprayers where you (your children, your pets*) won’t stumble over them. Also, you’ll want a multi-zone controller (and multiple hoses) so you can adjust the frequency and duration of watering. EG, 1 min once a week for cactus, 10 minutes 3xweek for grass and so on.
TBH I don’t think there’s a simple answer to what you want, but that’s gardening. I love doing it but it’s like 90% I screwed up what I already did, so I have to fix it, and also there are a million things I haven’t done yet but need to. Then one day you get all the tomatoes and basil and the desert flowers bloom and the rosemary went from scraggly to a bush you have to cut back…and you still have to fix the goddamn irrigation.
*My dog figured out the irrigation schedule and would regularly suck down the entire production of one sprayer, which killed a few plants.