Hunter Rotator MPs

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RayTL
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Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by RayTL » June 4th, 2017, 3:52 pm

Hi All,

I'm in the preliminary stages of planning an irrigation system at my house. I'm not in a rush and have plenty of time as I'm thinking this is a 2018 project.

I have 8-9k sq. ft. to cover in total, but I'm going to divvy the project it up into multiple segments. This way I can start with a 1650 sq. ft (33 x 50) fenced in area and add on additional sections of my yard over time. Luckily, my yard is laid out in such a way that I can get away with this approach without one section looking obviously well-watered versus others that are not.

My soil is mostly GA red clay, so I've been reading about Hunter's MP rotators as they are marketed to put out water slowly. I'm assuming this would allow water to seep into the clay versus running off. Does anyone have any experience with these and would you recommend them versus other manufacturers ?

There are a myriad of offerings, so any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Ray

Riverpilot
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by Riverpilot » June 4th, 2017, 4:48 pm

I just had irrigation installed last month. After watching them, I personally wouldn't want to install one by myself. Others like the challenge and have done a great job with a DIY. My neighbor being one of them.

I don't have the Hunter MP on mine, but I asked my installers about them. They stated they liked them, worked well under certain conditions. The biggest thing is the wind. If you have a lot of wind, out in the open, etc.. they may not work well.

The new controllers, I'm using the Hunter Pro-HC, has a setting for cycle & soak. Basically has the sprinkler run for x minutes, then let it soak for x minutes (I have mine set at 20) then turn back on for x minutes.

Few things I did learn, at least for my lawn. Better to have too many zones than not enough. Pay the extra few $$ for the better spray bodies, heads etc..

RayTL
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Joined: May 13th, 2017, 8:46 am
Location: Atlanta, GA
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by RayTL » June 4th, 2017, 7:23 pm

Thanks for the feedback, Riverpilot.

I think the side yard will be a good test. If it goes well then I'll work on the rest, but if it's too much then I will call in the pros. I use the yard as a sort of stress relief/exercise, so while I know it will be a lot of hard work, it serves a purpose.

If I'm remembering correctly, one of Hunter's selling points is that the streams from the MP cut through the wind, so I am glad to know it could still be a challenge. We live in a valley, so to speak, and the wind comes down the hill and it could present an issue for me for sure.

I like the idea of the soak time. Ultimately, I'll have several zones, so I could cycle through them to give me that that soaking interval.

Thanks!

Ray

g-man
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by g-man » June 4th, 2017, 10:03 pm

I use mp heads. I like how simple it is to design and build it your own. If the wind is really strong (25mph), then it could blow it a bit of course. At 6amis it very rare to have strong winds for me.

I recommend going to www.irrigationtutorial.com . It has a ton of information. Go thru their tutorial even if you plan to have it done by someone since you will learn if they are taking shortcuts that will cost you later.

A few tips:
- separate zone for the sidewalk strip
- ensure head to head coverage, always.
- poly pipe is a bit more than pvc, but easier to lay. I use 1in poly. 125 or 160psi.
- test your connections before cover up the pipes.
- I like the rachio controller

rtomek
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by rtomek » June 5th, 2017, 1:18 pm

I recently upgraded to all MP rotators. The primary benefit over other spray heads is actually the uniformity, and that's where the water savings they advertise comes in. It takes way longer to get an inch down due to the lower gpm, but you can make up for that in time by increasing the number of heads per zone. More heads per zone means fewer valves, which means you can also save money on your irrigation controller. The modern water-sense irrigation controllers can automatically cycle through zones based on precipitation rate and soil type to allow the water time to soak into the soil, so that really isn't a benefit to me.

Another benefit is that they're all matched with precipitation rate, so I can have the 90 degree, 180 degree, 360 degree, 15-foot radius, 35-foot radius and any combination of their head types on the same zone. With standard rotors, a 90 degree will have double the precipitation rate of a 180 degree, which will have double the precipitation rate of a 360 degree.


Riverpilot
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by Riverpilot » June 5th, 2017, 5:15 pm

That is a good point rtomek. However Hunter now has, for the I-20 anyway, matched precip rate nozzles if you don't want to do it the old way of just putting a bigger nozzle in the 180 to match the 90.
For instance, the new I-20 red precip match nozzles. 25' radius with right around .6" for the 90, 120, 180 or 360 nozzle.

The MP rotors look really cool to me though. lol... who knows. Down the road I might change my side lawn to the MP. The side is on 1/2" inlets, with Hunter Pro-Spray already, so it'd be an easy switch... but what I have, other than some fine tuning, seems to be working. :)

RayTL
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by RayTL » June 5th, 2017, 9:27 pm

g-man, much appreciated. I started working through the tutorial you recommended - a lot to learn. I'm typically not seeing a wind that strong in the early morning.

rotmek, thank you too. I hadn't thought about being able to add more heads per zone, since less water is required by the most heads. Guess I need to change my approach in general, I keep trying to design with the least amount of heads to save work, but this seems wrong based on the feedback so far.

rtomek
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by rtomek » June 6th, 2017, 2:50 pm

Well my experience is a bit different, as I have 7-7.5k sqft and it was installed with 10 zones. It's definitely overkill, but I will admit that it might be nice to fine tune the precipitation rate at that level. If I had a controller that could run multiple zones with different run times at once, I'd probably recommend it. Now that I have MP Rotators that put down 0.42 in/hr, it takes about 24 hours for a full inch. I either have to use relays to connect multiple valves per zone or water every other day. Supposedly OpenSprinkler has that ability now, or maybe I could buy two more 4-zone controllers if it I get the itch.

All of these zones sounds great for the first 5-10 years, but eventually you'll have to start doing maintenance on diaphragms and solenoids, which I had to do this year. And I did it last year. And I did it the year before that. Since my current solution is using relays to have a 3-zone system, the idea of just having three valves is appealing.

g-man
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by g-man » June 6th, 2017, 6:29 pm

I think we are hijacking his thread. If you want to continue start a new one.

Reduce your zones by merging the zones post the valves.

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gr0d
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by gr0d » June 8th, 2017, 10:34 pm

rtomek wrote:
June 5th, 2017, 1:18 pm
I recently upgraded to all MP rotators. The primary benefit over other spray heads is actually the uniformity, and that's where the water savings they advertise comes in. It takes way longer to get an inch down due to the lower gpm, but you can make up for that in time by increasing the number of heads per zone. More heads per zone means fewer valves, which means you can also save money on your irrigation controller. The modern water-sense irrigation controllers can automatically cycle through zones based on precipitation rate and soil type to allow the water time to soak into the soil, so that really isn't a benefit to me.

Another benefit is that they're all matched with precipitation rate, so I can have the 90 degree, 180 degree, 360 degree, 15-foot radius, 35-foot radius and any combination of their head types on the same zone. With standard rotors, a 90 degree will have double the precipitation rate of a 180 degree, which will have double the precipitation rate of a 360 degree.
I did about 9K (completely myself) 2 years ago when I did my backyard KBG renovation. Reading all of the tutorials and all of the information had my head spinning. But soon enough I realized that it wasn't really that tough to calculate or to do. The math is simple as long as you know which heads you are using, your GPM from your water line, and the pipe size you plan to use.

I trenched out a 1" PVC line from my crawl space to my valve box. I then ran poly (using a pipe puller or vibratory plow sometimes called) from the valve box to 4 zones with 4 heads on each.

I went with the MP rotators as well. They spray great, the matched precipitation is awesome, and they are super easy to adjust the pattern on odd shapes.

I started mid summer and kind of did a little bit here and there for a few weeks when I had time. The part that will take the longest is to get the plumbing from the inside to your valve box location and getting the rest of the zone pipes pulled. When that is done, you can do a little by little each night.

One piece of advice, don't get too caught up on all of the math regarding pressure loss, head loss and all of that stuff. You will just overwhelm yourself. Create your zones based on the pipe size you are using and flow rate you
have coming from your water line and be done with it. And when in doubt oversize the plumbing to be safe. I ran 1" for my main and every zone.

Mine came out great. Good luck.

RayTL
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Joined: May 13th, 2017, 8:46 am
Location: Atlanta, GA
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Re: Hunter Rotator MPs

Post by RayTL » June 13th, 2017, 9:26 pm

Thanks gr0d, I'm several pages into the tutorial and am definitely drinking from a firehose, so I appreciate you sharing as it can seem pretty overwhelming.

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