The layout of the lawn sprinkler heads is a crucial step in the proper designing of an efficient and effective lawn sprinkler system. The sprinkler heads need to be placed properly in order to achieve “matched precipitation”, meaning achieving even watering across landscape and lawn areas. Proper design and head layout should avoid dry, brown spots or over-watered spots.
The 2 main types of heads used in a typical NJ residential lawn sprinkler are rotory heads and spray heads. A rotory head rotates to cover a larger area and therefore are generally placed in the lawn area or larger turf areas. Spray heads which are stationary or fixed are generally used in smaller grassy areas or landscape beds. A rotory head will cover an area of approximately 25 – 30 feet depending on water pressure, whereas a spray head covers at most a 15 ft area.
“Head to Head” coverage is placing the appropriate head where the end of the stream of water from previous head reaches. The reasoning behind this is that there is a difference in the amount of water coming from the 1st head then comes from the last head. If the sprinkler heads are placed whereas to allow the stream of water from one head to overlap the next heads stream, they are double spaced and causing over-watering.
Hunter, Rainbird & Toro have what are known as “matched precipitation” nozzles to simplify the process with spray heads. For rotory heads you will need to match up the correct nozzle for the GPM (gallons per minute).
It is only common sense that the layout of the heads is important to the proper design of any sprinkler system. I mean without proper design and layout you could have solid gold valves, pumps, pipes, sprinkler heads and controller which will look impressive…until you see the brown dry spots of a poorly designed sprinkler system that you are not happy with.
