Making Your Home Beautiful

A sprinkler system can be absolutely vital to maintaining the health of your yard, especially you live in a place that doesn't receive a lot of natural rainfall. That's why it is so important that you know how to properly install an underground sprinkler system before you begin the process. It can be an intimidating project at first glance, but if you avoid common pitfalls, it can be simpler than you think. Keep reading below for just a handful of great tips to keep in mind.

Avoid Utility Lines

Irrigation system installation isn't something you want to jump into without any planning. Sure, digging holes for the sprinkler lines may seem simple enough, but if you run into an unexpected obstacle, it can be a huge waste of time and money. That's why you should contact your local utility company before anything else, and have them mark off the lines on or around your property. Once you have these marked, you can begin planning the details of your sprinkler system.

Locate A Water Source

The next thing you'll need to do is locate a water source on your property. For some, this might be a tank that has already been installed underground. For others in more rural areas, it might even be a large well. Regardless of where exactly you're getting your water, you'll then need to make a number of decisions about how your sprinkler system will function with regard to your water source, including calculations relating to water pressure and volume. For this part, don't hesitate to call your local water provider. 

Measure Sprinkler Reach

Finally, you'll want to measure the reach of specific sprinkler heads. This is fairly easy to do with sprinklers that are installed on the edges of your yard, but you want to also make sure that the sprinklers installed in the middle can water the harder to reach parts of the lawn. For this reason, it is imperative that you install sprinklers with heads that can rotate all the way around; any less than 360 degrees and you'll find plenty of brown spots in the middle of your yard where the sprinklers simply couldn't reach. Buy a can of spray paint (that isn't toxic and won't harm your grass) and mark off the radius or diameter of the reach of specific sprinkler heads. This will help you to more easily visualize the entire system.