Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

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kcheek
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Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » July 29th, 2018, 7:17 pm

I performed a zone audit to try and dial in my irrigation this year using Orbit's waterschedule.com. My uniformity was awful and in an attempt to get the output up to improve, I switched out mostly 3.0 nozzles with 8.0. Now my zones have a very weak stream and covering maybe 10 feet from the head. :banghead: Is something else wrong, or do I not have enough output to run the 8 gal/min nozzles? I have a well that's putting out 30 gal/min, but I don't know the PSI. Also, the zones have 5 heads.

Thanks,
Kevin

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by ENVY23 » July 30th, 2018, 1:01 am

You have 5 heads with 8 gpm nozzles, so you’re asking for 40 gpm with a well that only puts out 30 gpm. If your well puts out 30 gpm, ideally you don’t want your total gpm in each zone to exceed 24 gpm, or 80%. This accounts for frictional losses of moving the water through the pipe. You could probably get by with 5 gpm nozzles(25 gpm total), but 4.5 gpm or less would be better.

Also, remember not to put the same gpm nozzle in heads that make different arcs. You want the gpm to be proportional between the arcs of different heads. Example: You have a head that has a 360* arc and has a 5 gpm nozzle. If you have another head on that zone that only makes a 180* arc, or half, then you also want that nozzle to be half, or 2.5gpm. A 90* arc would need a 1.25 gpm nozzle, and so on. The reason is because in any given amount of time, a 180* arc is covering it’s area twice as often as the 360* arc covers it’s area, so to keep coverage even the 180* head needs it’s output to be cut in half. I hope that makes sense.

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » July 30th, 2018, 3:15 pm

Envy23, thanks!! After a bit more research, I was a bit off, but still off. At 35 GPM from the pump the 8.0 puts out 7.1 GPM. Thanks for the wisdom on the arc of the head, I did not know about that. Looks like I will be replacing nozzles again taking all this in!

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » July 31st, 2018, 5:17 am

Swapped out nozzles on one zone yesterday evening as follows (5 head zone):

2 - #5.0 4.5 GPM @ 35 PSI
3 - #6.0 5.2 GPM @ 35 PSI

That give me a total flow of 24.6 GPM, correct? I am still not getting the radius I was getting with the #3.0 nozzle (2.6 GPM @ 35 PSI). Does that mean I'm probably not getting 30 GPM out of the well? Also, would a busted head on a zone closer to the well affect pressure?

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by HSB3-LI » July 31st, 2018, 1:45 pm

30 GPM is a lot for a zone. Consider breaking it up with fewer heads per zone or try even smaller nozzles (still sized proportionally as mentioned above) and deal with longer run times. You might find you get more distance out of smaller nozzles if your system can't keep the pressure up with larger nozzles installed. How far are you shooting? I find I am limited to about 30 feet with 3-4 heads on a zone regardless of nozzle size due to pipe main sizes, street pressure etc.


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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by ENVY23 » July 31st, 2018, 8:37 pm

How did you determine you have 30 gpm? It does seem high, but I’m not familiar with well setups. I’m on city water and have around 15 gpm. A busted head shouldn’t affect the other zones, only the one zone with the broken head. If you have a hose bib that’s also on the well, time how long(in seconds) it takes to fill up a 5gal bucket. Then do 5 divided by TIME. Take that number and multiply by 60. This number is your available GPM.

Example:
5(gal) divided by 20(seconds) = 0.25
Then
0.25 x 60(seconds in a min) = 15 GPM.

Let us know what you come up with.

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by rydaddy » August 3rd, 2018, 12:40 pm

I was on vacation and late to the party on this topic... I pay close attention to irrigation topics here. 30gpm from a well is CRAZY awesome if you are really getting that. Follow ENVY23's advise above for sure, that will get you on the right path. Good for you on doing an audit. I have the orbit catch cups at home (collecting dust) as I want to do one as well. Just have not made the time to do it. You're prompting me to get off my butt and do it.

It's very possible your GPM is not accurate and you need to go down in nozzle size significantly. I'm on city water and have 12 zones (approx 6 heads per zone). 19gpm and 65 psi. Takes me a long time to put water down over 25k+ sqft. I feel your pain. My system was installed with a 2.5gpm nozzle in every head, regardless of if it was a 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or full radius (or anywhere in between). I figured that out the first summer.

Sorry if I went off topic. Will be interested to see how you resolved it.

Ryan

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » August 5th, 2018, 6:33 am

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and help!

I think a big part of the problem is that I don't know the GPM coming from the well. The 30 used above is form the plate on the well that the driller made when drilled some 20 years ago. I don't have a spigot to try the bucket test. I also don't have a recovery tank (not sure that makes any difference other than the pump runs all the time while water is flowing).

Rain and replacing misting heads on another zones have kept me from picking this project back up but hopefully today I'll try something else. What I'm thinking is to remove one of the heads on a zone and attaching a pressure gauge on a cut-off riser to check pressure. This won't give me GPM, but maybe knowing the pressure will help? I am trying to reverse engineer the GMP as suggested in the irrigation tutorials.

Thanks again!

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » August 5th, 2018, 2:33 pm

This is a picture of my well. Would it be of any benefit to add a pressure valve somewhere on here? Would it help me in any of this?
Image

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Re: Toro T5P-RS heads w/8.0 Standard Nozzle problems

Post by kcheek » August 5th, 2018, 3:51 pm

Update:

1. Please disregard the measurement in the picture attached to the last post. I was playing around with the Google AR measuring app and that is NOT 1+ feet.
2. Measured distance between all heads all zones today. In the zone I am testing I have 5 heads and the distance between each head is: 1-2 32' 6", 2-3 33' 7", 3-4 31' 9" and 4-5 33' 10". I wish I could say the are in a straight line, or even a straightish line. All the zones are bowed.
3. Put a pressure gauge on heads 2-5 and each measured 20 PSI. I figured if 4 did then the 5th would.

Not sure what all this means just yet, but this is where I am.

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