Special heads for low pressure situations?

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SteveL1

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I 've got an in ground system with 8 zones and am fighting a low pressure situation in a few zones. Some heads won't even pop up and others just run very lightly. I've had the water company come out and they say that the pressure meets their minimum requirement so I assume that my options are to add a pump, which would help in the house as well, or swap out some of the heads with a different type. Are there any available? The heads are Rain Bird rotor gear type and are about 10 years old.

The system has worked.......ok....for the most part in the past. Never really been happy with coverage. Any help would be apreciated! Oh yea, and I have called my installer about three times and he keeps avoiding the issue.
 

Jimbo

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Those rotors probably have interchangeable nozzles, so you could get nozzles with lower GPM, and run the zone for more minutes. Cutting the GPM in half would likely get the pressure up where everybody's happy. The only other alternatives are the pump, or making more zones.
 

SteveW

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Another possibility would be water leaks - this occurred with several zones on my system this year, when several risers partially snapped. The heads would still receive some water, but not enough pressure or volume to fully pop up.
 

SteveL1

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How on earth do you check for leaks other than looking for pooling or buldges in the turf?

I will have to look in to changing ou the nozzles too.
 

SteveW

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SteveL1 said:
How on earth do you check for leaks other than looking for pooling or buldges in the turf?



You got it - take a close look around each head for water, erosion, etc.
 

Bob NH

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SteveL1 said:
How on earth do you check for leaks other than looking for pooling or buldges in the turf?

I will have to look in to changing ou the nozzles too.

Check for leaks by removing and plugging the nozzles outlets and appying water. If you get flow in a zone without with the nozzle outlets plugged, then you have a leak.

You can then decide to find and fix it, or call it a special feature for reducing the evaporation loss.
 
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