Combining Zones

[Duke76]

I purchased a home with an irrigation system running 12 zones on a fairly small lot. I don't know why it has so many zones, perhaps low city water pressure. When I purchased the home, the previous homeowner told me that he was in the process of coverting to lake water and all I needed to do was finish installing the pump, which I have now done. (And cut and capped the water rom the city.) I have lots of water volume and pressure and would like to reduce the number of zones I am running. I have tested combining zones by simply wiring two valves together. There is still great pressure and coverage.

My question is this. Can I combine zones by wiring multiple valves together ? Will this dammage the controller, valves, solenoids ?

Thank you for your help.

[drick]

Most of the low end controllers can control two valves at once. The higher end controllers can do 4 or more valves. If you are going to remove valves to decrease the number of zones think carefully about how you combine the zones. Sprinkler head types, amount of sun, and soil type all have an effect on how much water an area needs and once you remove a valve and physically combine two zones you will lose your ability to water those two sections differently.

There are timers available that can run two or more irrigation programs simultaneously so you can take advantage of your increased GPM output from the lake and still keep all your zones.

Also, if you are using rotors you can look into increasing the nozzle size in each rotor so you can water each area faster. Obviously you don't want run off, but many times low GPM systems and using nozzle sizes that are smaller than they should be leading in uneven watering due to wind drift and improper matching between half circle and full circle rotors. Now that you have more GPM to work with this is also something you should look at.

-rick

[Duke76]

Thank you very much.