What’s the Minimum Pressure for Sprinkler Heads?

Sprinklers can be a fantastic option for keeping grass looking lush and green all year around. This is particularly true if you live in an area with a warm climate which can wreak havoc on a lawn otherwise.

But as with any form of automation, sprinklers can also introduce new possibilities for things to go wrong. If you rely on your sprinkler set up and it is not fully covering your lawn, then you can easily end up with large yellow patches. Add too many sprinklers and you can end up water-logging your garden, or even ruining the pressure!

To get this right, you need to think like an engineer: to determine how many heads can be used per zone, based on the flow rate of your set-up and the water pressure in your home.

What’s the Minimum Pressure for Sprinkler Heads?

Pressure describes the amount of water that is traveling through your sprinkler system at any given time. The more tightly that water is packed into a small space, the more forcefully it will leave the nozzle and the more distance it will cover.

But as you start adding more and more sprinkler heads to your zone, you’ll be diluting that water across these different units. That means the amount of pressure will be much lower, which in turn means that the water won’t travel as far! Get this wrong, and you can end up with a small amount of water trickling out of your heads and not going anywhere!

But this depends on the pressure of your home, the amount needed by the sprinkler system, and the flow rate.

So as an example, if you took a sprinkler system with a 35PSI pressure rating, then you might expect to see somewhere in the region of 3.11 gallons used per minute. If your home’s water capacity is rated at 10GPM, then you would be able to use a total of 3 heads per zone.

In order to get these details, you will need to refer to the box that your sprinkler system came with. As for the minimum pressure for sprinkler heads that is acceptable, you can also find this information on the box. Not sure what your water pressure is? Then you need to invest in a pressure gauge. Screw this onto any faucet and it will give you that number.

Pioneer Underground Lawn Sprinklers | Omaha’s Best Commercial & Residential Sprinkler Systems

Contact Pioneer Underground Lawn Sprinklers to schedule a free estimate on a system install or to find out what you can do to make your existing system more efficient. We welcome commercial and residential clients. And remember, whether you need our services now… or later in the season, Your Healthy Lawn is Our Passion and we are only a phone call away! Call 402-934-7900 to schedule your service.

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