Low Water Pressure - Plumber?

[guest]

Any plumbing wizards here?

I have about 50psi water pressure at my home, unsure of GPM. Plan on having a sprinkler system put in but there is concern that there isn't enough pressure to run it or that we will have to put in a million zones to make it work.

The wholesaler suggested a cistern but I am not overly crazy about installing a large holding tank.

Ideas?......

[RagingRandy]

Are you on a well or municipal supply?

[guest]

Are you on a well or municipal supply?

municipal. apparently i have one of the highest lots in town.

[gojimmygo]

What size is your water main Bana?If it's large enough you could tie in the sprinklers before the pressure reducing valve and that would bump the pressure to city pressure which could be as high as 100 psi,depending where you live. But most houses have a 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch main which isn't enough for sprinklers. I'm pretty sure(don't have my code book handy) you need at least 1.5 or maybe even 2 inch main if you putting in sprinklers in a new house. If you main is too small I'd suggest replacing it to the city connection and running a bigger main in. Probably better then getting a holding tank and having 200 zones in your house.Just more stuff that'll need replacing in the future. And since you're in good shape you can dig that trench in no time:) That'll save you alot of dough

[RagingRandy]

If you are on municipal your pressure should stay fairly constant. GPM will be a large factor. You need to know this to plan the layout of the sprinkler heads. This is a big read but very informative.....http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/sprinkler00.htm

[guest]

i had the district come out and test it when the house was still being built. my pressure is about 50psi right off the city tie in. we knew it was going to be a problem from the start, i have another residence on the property that has **** all for pressure (about 30' in elevation from the tie in). we went with a bigger line into the house just because of this.

i was looking at this:
http://www.towle-whitney.com/lowwaterpressure.html

Thanks for the advice fellas.

[gojimmygo]

i had the district come out and test it when the house was still being built. my pressure is about 50psi right off the city tie in. we knew it was going to be a problem from the start, i have another residence on the property that has **** all for pressure (about 30' in elevation from the tie in). we went with a bigger line into the house just because of this.

i was looking at this:
http://www.towle-whitney.com/lowwaterpressure.html

Thanks for the advice fellas.

Ya 50 psi city pressure is really low. I don't think you really have a choice but to use one of those pump systems. Good luck bro

[ironwill]

Hey guys, flow and pressure are 2 different animals, when you reduce a line size, you can get more pressure, but flow will not change.......You are looking for pressure here and IMO you have more than enough if you do as i did below...
Now you will probably need a booster pump for your system bana if you want to run more zones and a cystren or holding tank to get efficient flow and capacity to your sprinklers.......
I have sprinklers at my place 20 sprinklers coming from 3 zones...What i did in my case was put them on timers so one sprinkler or 2 will go off at once and rotate through all of the sprinklers 1 zone at a time......No need for them to all be on at once....I ran 3 headers off the main line coming in , 1 for each zone ...Two zones have 8 sprinklers, and one zone has 4....I charge 1 zone at a time and run 2 sprinklers at the most at one time, it worked out great bro.....If i tried to run 2 zones at once, i could piss harder than the sprinkler...You can also get many different spray patterns that just pop in to the end of the sprinkler and you can adjust spray patterns and pressure that way...
Im writing this quick , and probably forgot something, hope you get my drift....

[guest]

cool, thx IW.