How to Check Irrigation Systems

How to Check Your Irrigation System for Coverage

Often times, people use their irrigation systems without knowing how much water they’re actually delivering to their grass.  In this video, Houston Grass South Owner Michael Romine talks about how to check irrigation systems for coverage and the amount of water they deliver to your lawn in any period of time.

Barefoot Tested - Houston Grass South
Barefoot Tested – Houston Grass South

Houston Grass South is a family-owned grass business that’s been growing top quality sod since 1981.  The grass sod delivered by Houston Grass South comes from the Romine family farm in Bay City and that’s why we can stand behind the quality of the grass sod we sell.  We know where it comes from and how it’s grown.  Call us at 281-431-7441 to get the best quality grass at great prices!

To check irrigation systems, the best thing to do is to go out and purchase several . . . depending on the size of your yard, to purchase several of these rain gauges to make sure that you’re getting some sort of reading.

Place these rain gauges around your yard  and then turn on your sprinkler system and record the time the sprinkler system is on.  Turn the sprinkler system off and then check the amounts of water in your rain gauges.  You’ll be able to calculate how much water you can deliver through your irrigation system per hour and you’ll see where there might be gaps in coverage or variations in the amount of water delivered.

You have different types of heads; you have the spray heads. In a spray head, you have the different gallons per minute and you also have the different angles. You have some that’ll do 90 degrees, some that do 360, or 180 degrees.

You also have the, we call them the ‘rotor heads’ that pop up and they spray out. As opposed to a mist, they spray more like a traditional sprinkler and they just move back and forth. All of those put out different amounts of water.

Then you have some drip lines in there, usually too; there again, they put out a little bit different amounts of water. The only way to really tell is to put a rain gauge out there if you really want to know for sure, because you are looking for that if you’ve got an irrigation system.

You still . . . I water twice per week in the growing season with my irrigation system as well, and I can tell you that most my spray heads are on, probably, 10 to 15 minutes and my rotor heads are on a little bit longer than that. Drip lines are on a . . . they put out . . . the purpose of drip lines is to put out water very slowly over time. They’re usually on for 1 hour, is about the time that . . . 45 minutes to 1 hour is what I . . . to put out the proper amount of water for a drip line. There again, all of those are twice a week. That’s what I do personally.

Houston Grass South is located just a few miles east of Sienna Plantation and just off of Highway 6 on FM 521.  Come by our office to barefoot-test our grass.  You can pick up pieces or pallets of grass at our office or we’ll deliver your grass sod to your project site in the Metro Houston area.  Call us at 281-431-7441 or ask for a quote using our quote form.