How hard is it to install your own sprinkler system? Just renting a trencher for a weekend and putting in some PVC can’t be too hard. Surely there are sites that can calculate your max distance and runs? Or is this one of those things best left for the Mexicans standing outside of Home Depot?
Sprinker controls are low voltage, so the mexicans here just use direct burial cable. I prefer PVC.
What systems even have buried wire? The ones I always see are a box coming off the house, so you need 120V at the house, goes into the timer box and it’s 24V there and the low voltage wiring goes a total of <18” to the solenoid that opens the valve, it never has to go underground. You do have to bury a bunch of pipe though, and best bet is to stay far away from large trees because roots
Hopefully OP has a 120V source near the water souce he’s going to use.
How big is your yard? You don’t even have to go that deep. The most complicated part is probably setting up the timer box if it’s one of those 24V ones with the yellow dial and the dumb little pins to click it on and off, although 2023 system I’m sure there’s a digital box and more updated zone control valve thing. Running the pipes under walkways isn’t the most fun thing either, never had to go under a whole 2 car wide driveway so I can’t comment on that.
It’s pretty easy, going to be a weekend job if you’re doing it yourself. Tbqhwy, I’ve seen so many systems get fricked because of lazy installs that put the pipes just barely under the sod, I would rather do it myself than pay Home Depot rentals to half ass it.
The backyard is pretty big but idk if I really need to water the whole thing the back corner can probably be left to just die.
I’ve got a 120v GFI outlet next to my hose so I’d just set the timer box near there.
Yard might be too large to hand trench it.
Thanks I’ll check out the site.
I’m guessing I need to call in locates for this before starting even though I’ll only be a foot deep max?
You know for large yards you can do multiple zones, right? The one corner your worried about, set the timer a little longer on that zone if you want. Also if you go with the Rainbird style sprinkers, there’s all sorts of angles and adjustments to get the coverage just right,
Not sure what your water pressure is like, but I think I have 5-6 sprinkler heads per zone.
>How hard
It's not about how hard it is, it is about how much fun it is.
Endless possible layouts, sprinkler types, timers, whatnot.
Get a nice trenching shovel and have a good time. Maybe start with a smaller section as a pilot and see if you can make it work.
I think railbird.com has a flash utility to layout your lawn
>railbird
did you mean rainbird
Installing is pretty easy. Anyone with basic plumbing experience can do it. Designing the system to account for your available water pressure/flow and getting consistent coverage can be a real b***h.
>How hard is it to install your own sprinkler system?
this is how I can tell you won't do it.
>renting a trencher
Renter.
Obviously it depends entirely on your yard and the composition of your soil.
I put in a whole sprinkler system for my parents when I was a teenager. It was about an acre of lawn, in two parts. It was hard work, but lots of fun. It wasn't hard in terms of planning. Research sprinkler coverage areas to come up with the products you want to buy. Plan for flow rates to size the pipes. Make sure every line runs downhill so the leftover water is always freezing away from the sprinklers in the winter (unless you live in the tropics). There were no websites to calculate all this; a basic understanding of math and physics is all you need, so unless you're an actual moron, you should be able to figure it out.
Use schedule 40 PVC. Trust me.