[Dave81NJ]

Last year I was cheap about it, barely watered my lawn, and pretty much destroyed it. Glad I did Aeration and overseeing in the fall. Right now the lawn is nice but some spots that get lots of sun are starting to dry out.

Here is the issue.
I have a 8 zone sprinkler system. I am running each zone at around 30-40min. I turn it on at 5am and it stops by around 8:30am. That's 3 and a half hours of water. And at the end of it, after placing those cat food size cans around to see how much water has been collected, I am around 1/3rd of an inch. Is this normal???

Everyone says that you need to water enough to collect 1 inch of water. I am at one third of that after 40 minutes on each zone.

I am curious, is it normal to run sprinkler for an hour or so per zone? Am I going to see this huge water bill at the end of summer? What do folks here pay for watering their lawn?

Thank you.

 

[SJ Lawn]

Unless you are dinged with a sewer charge for every gallon of water running through your water meter, you will not get a $1,500 water bill. Is NJ American Water Company your supplier ?

My lawn is about 6,000 sq. ft. Assuming it does not rain for 4 weeks straight, the water usage is 16,000 gallons for me. This equates to about $ 104.00 in water cost for 4 weeks.

How often you water depends temperature, type of soil you have, sun area or shade area, root depth, etc.

Take a water meter reading before your next watering cycle and another reading right after the cycle is done. You can arrive at what your water bill may be.

 

[SJ Lawn]

Your watering time for each zone also depends on the square footage of the zone and the output of each of your heads in the same zone.

 

[g-man]

My sprinkler heads output around 0.4in/hr. So I need to run for 2+ hrs to get 1in.

You dont want to water your lawn every day. That encourages shallow roots. The idea with the general guideline of 1in/week is the typical average based on typical usage (ET). The ideal scenario would be to know how much water (ET) your lawn used and replace it when the bank (soil) runs out. In a typical hot sunny day, a lawn could use around 0.2in per day. There are tables and weather data that could help with all of this. You could also use a "smart" controller to manage it (ie. Rachio).

Another more low tech method is to setup your controller to run to get the 1in (1.5hr/zone?) and keep it in manual mode. Water the lawn that morning and then start watching for signs of stress. In the peak of summer (like this weekend) you will see it in 3-4 days. The lawn starts to look more gray than green. Once you see the signs, trigger the controller to do a full cycle (1in). Keep doing this and adjust when rain shows up. If you go on vacation, then set it to the average days it normally takes (3 days?).

Will it be more water usage? No. You are watering 30min everyday. That's 3.5hr/week. In the example above, it will be 1.5hr * 2, ~3hr/week. And when the heat lowers or there is rain, you will go more days without watering, so you will save even more.

If you want to learn more about ET, this is the first article to read: https://aroundtheyard.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119:cactus-water-balance-irrigation&catid=9&Itemid=117

 

[Darkshadow]

Dave81NJ,
It is totally normal for it to take that long to get an inch of water. I had the same question when I first started measuring the output of my system. The reality is that everyone's system is different--different heads, different nozzles, different pressure, flow, head spacing, whether your heads are placed in a square/triangle pattern, or no pattern at all. Even just making sure that the top of your rotor heads are level can make a difference in getting the water to go where you want it to go.

The first step is measuring, like you did. There are some really good articles on irrigation auditing on some other sites if you're interesting in making sure you're getting the water you want, where you want it. It's not hard, and it will pay off by telling you exactly how long you need to run each zone to get the water you want.

 

[Rucraz2]

Im new to irrigation myself this yr. 16 zones with 9 on one controller and 7 on the other. Ive got my larger one going anywhere from 30 mins to 1 hr. Ive still only got 1/3 of an inch running it the longest. But the wife has no water pressure in the morning to shower being we're on a well. So I usually don't get to run them as long. Starting at 11 and ending around 430-5am I have mine running every night alternating controllers to try and achieve every bit i can. I know its not ideal and i hope im not setting myself up for shallow roots. But thats all I can do. From what I have read from others, im not alone. It's just part of having a large yard. Or atleast thats what im hoping.

 

[Turfguy93]

Im new to irrigation myself this yr. 16 zones with 9 on one controller and 7 on the other. Ive got my larger one going anywhere from 30 mins to 1 hr. Ive still only got 1/3 of an inch running it the longest. But the wife has no water pressure in the morning to shower being we're on a well. So I usually don't get to run them as long. Starting at 11 and ending around 430-5am I have mine running every night alternating controllers to try and achieve every bit i can. I know its not ideal and i hope im not setting myself up for shallow roots. But thats all I can do. From what I have read from others, im not alone. It's just part of having a large yard. Or atleast thats what im hoping.

Run 4 zones alternating every 4 days to get .5-.75 inches of water per zone. So mon zone 1,2,3,4. Tues. zones 5,6,7,8. Etc

 

[Rucraz2]

The way my controllers are set up, I have to run all zones per controller each time. I can't figure out how to set it up to run different zones per day. Unless i switch programs every day manually. Its an older toro groundskeeper. Ive read the manuals and have seen some videos. But nothing showing how to change it otherwise.