Irrigation Installation
While our climate does have a lot of rain, a properly designed irrigation system is necessary in the spring and summer months to keep your grass green and plants blooming.
There are many aspects that need to come into account when designing an Irrigation system, such as: Sun or Shade, soil type, Grass or Plants, Spray Heads or Soaker Line, Water Pressure, Water volume, and Head Pressure.
All of these aspects will help us determine how many zones the system will need, how many heads each zone will need, how much soaker line, and the duration and frequency of each zone.
Installation of an Irrigation system
Once we have walked through your property and designed the perfect Irrigation system, our team will come in and install.
Flagging out the Job
The first thing we do when we show up to your house is Flag out the job and dig up where we’re connection to the water. Flagging out a system is where we decide where each of the heads will be placed. The different colours mean different zones, and each flag represents a head.
There are a few reasons for needing zones. Lawn and Garden zones need different amounts of water and have different water restrictions. We also only have so much water to work with. Your house doesn’t have enough water pressure to irrigate your house all at once, so we divide it into zones to ensure we have the water pressure to properly operate each zone.
MP Rotator
For Nozzles we use Hunter Industries Mp Rotators. Mp Rotators have a precipitation rate of 0.4 inches per hour which allows the water to slowly soak into the soil. These nozzles have to be on twice as long as traditional nozzles, but they save 30% of the water.
Mp Rotators provide even coverage, save water and are the closest thing to a natural rain. We can design a system that can be dialed in to inches to limit over spray and wasted water.
Nozzles come in sizes ranging from 5′-35′ and can have a radius from 15 Degrees to 360 Degrees. With this precision and coverage there will be no dry spots on your lawn and no wet spots on your patio.
Sod Cutter
We use the BlueBird sod cutter to lift up the sod in your Front or back yard. The sod cutter cuts an area that is 18″ wide and 3/4″ thick. The sod cutter allows us to lift up your sod more efficiently and have nice clean edges. The main benefit to the sod cutter is our ability to put the sod back down at a uniform depth.
Netafim
For soaker lines in Gardens and Hedges we use Netafim. Netafim has Pressure regulating valves that provide even pressure along the entire run. With this system you can have up to 400′ of Netafim on one zone and each nozzle will emit the same amount water every 12″.
Netafim emitters are every 12″, have pressure regulating valves that regulate the pressure to 30 PSI and emit 0.9 Gallons per hour per emitter. The valves also don’t allow weeds to grow in. The Line can be buried or laid on the surface and held down with staples.
Trencher
Once we have your Sod lifted up, we use the Groundhog Trencher to dig a trench 3″ wide and 6-8″ deep. The trencher ensures our pipes are deep enough that they won’t get broken by an aerator, but is still shallow enough that it easy for repairs. These machines take away most of the manual labour of the job and allow them to focus on installing the irrigation.
Before And After Pictures
These are before and after picture from a job we did in North Vancouver this past summer, the pictures were taken the same day. They were taken from different angles but it shows our process for installing an irrigation system.
On the right picture you can’t see any lines from the grass being lifted up. There is a little but of grass that didn’t go back nicely by the patio, but that was because we had to go under the sidewalk.
Irrigation Controller
The Last step of your irrigation system is setting up the controller that will automatically turn on and off the zones. The Controller we use is the Rainbird ESP-ME. The Controller is easy to use, has 5 program setting and can control up to 24 zones.
Before we leave your house we will walk you through how to use your irrigation system and how to adjust all the zones.
As a rough estimate, MP Rotator zones should be on 3 times a week for 45 minutes, and Netafim zones should be on either every day or 3 times a week for 1 hour.
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