Sunday, June 24, 2012

Finishing the South Bed Irrigation

American Irrigation Repair came out and repaired the two broken sprinkler valves. The valve for Zone 4 had a broken solenoid; the valve for Zone 3 had a bad diaphragm, and had to be completely replaced.

The controllers for Zone 2 and Zone 3 are about 35 inches from the house foundation for the breakfast nook bay window. They cover from 20 to 35 inches from the South corner of the breakfast nook bay window. The supply line is 27 to 28 inches from the house foundation, and 2 to 6 inches underground.

The controller for Zone 4 is 23 to 29 inches from the sidewalk and about 12 inches underground.



The drip irrigation lines are meant to be about 6 inches down and 18 inches apart. I tested them before they were buried and they worked fine. In 110 minutes, Zone 3 used 700 gallons of water. That would be both the North Bed and the extended South Bed. The ground is still very aerated and loose, so the water does not seem to stay around. After it compresses and compacts more, it should work better.



One problem was noted. We bought a roll of 250 feet of the dripline for the first work, and used it all in the herb beds around the porch (Zone 5), the North Bed, and the right side (West) of the South Bed. Then we had to get more dripline. But they no longer carry the 250 foot rolls; I got 500 feet instead and used it for the left side (East) of the South Bed.

The original roll of dripline that I bought was XFS0912250; this new dripline was XFS0612500. This is the XFS subsurface dripline. The next two digits are the number of gallons per hour -- .9 gallons per hour for the old roll, and .6 gallons per hour for the new roll. The 12 is then number of inches between drip holes, and the last is the length of the roll (250 feet for the old roll and 500 feet in the new roll).

The problem is that this means the left side (West) of the South Pit has mostly 0.9 gallons per hour and the right side (East) has 0.6 gallons per hour. Visually it looked more like the East side was dripping more, but it should be only 2/3 the rate of the West side. We will have to see if this is (or is not) a problem.