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DanielM8510 Jan 2020 23:05Good evening everyone,
I’m new to the forum and currently building a single-family house (180m² (1,938 sq ft) living area).
Since I am doing some of the work myself (including all electrical installations with KNX), the garden and irrigation planning has fallen behind due to lack of time – I’m hoping to get some support from you here (although I have already done some preliminary work).
First of all, attached you will find the necessary exterior views and a floor plan for better understanding (together with my notes).
The house is set 5m (16 feet) back from the street (which is expected to be finished only around the end of 2021 and will be raised by about 30cm (1 foot) compared to the construction road – so I will postpone the execution from the front garden until then, but I plan to pave the driveway already this summer).
The interior plaster will be done next week, and the planned completion is by the end of May – so I want to start dealing with the garden and irrigation planning soon.
This spring/summer I want to install the garden, terrace, and path around the house (including the hedge up to the 7m (23 feet) boundary on the west side) as well as the entire lawn area.
On the west side, I would stop at the 5m (16 feet) boundary and wait to build the front garden until the final street is finished – BUT I would like to lay the irrigation pipes for the front lawn now.
In the workshop room behind the garage, I installed a 100mm (4 inch) drainage pipe between the garage and garden – my idea was to have the water connection installed in the garage (with a separate water meter) and then run water and necessary cables between the garage and garden through this conduit, resulting in an irrigation control station position marked in orange.
What I want to irrigate:
Everything – that means the entire lawn area, the hedge, the flower beds in the garden, and the as-yet unplanned flower beds in the front garden.
In my research, I came across irrigation systems by Hunter (and would like to focus the planning on this brand for now).
I plan to control the irrigation valves via KNX (24V AC and a separate actuator are required).
Where I need help (I read the manuals, including Hunter’s, but lack practical experience and hope for your support):
Irrigation planning / experience:
The terrace and the path around the house will most likely be covered with 60x60x2cm (24x24x0.8 inch) ceramic slabs laid on drainage mortar (or bedding mortar with bonding agent, gravel, and adhesive).
The house itself is 20cm (8 inches) higher than the garage – we want the living room to lead out almost level onto the terrace.
What we don’t have a good idea or solution for yet: How to design the paving behind the garage up to the house – the almost 70cm (28 inch) space left of the door from the garage to the house should have the same level as the terrace (which is almost too narrow to place a grill there – it would actually be a perfect spot for a grill, but a step up to the terrace would be very difficult).
I hope I was able to convey my questions clearly with my first post here and look forward to your comments.
Daniel
I’m new to the forum and currently building a single-family house (180m² (1,938 sq ft) living area).
Since I am doing some of the work myself (including all electrical installations with KNX), the garden and irrigation planning has fallen behind due to lack of time – I’m hoping to get some support from you here (although I have already done some preliminary work).
First of all, attached you will find the necessary exterior views and a floor plan for better understanding (together with my notes).
The house is set 5m (16 feet) back from the street (which is expected to be finished only around the end of 2021 and will be raised by about 30cm (1 foot) compared to the construction road – so I will postpone the execution from the front garden until then, but I plan to pave the driveway already this summer).
The interior plaster will be done next week, and the planned completion is by the end of May – so I want to start dealing with the garden and irrigation planning soon.
This spring/summer I want to install the garden, terrace, and path around the house (including the hedge up to the 7m (23 feet) boundary on the west side) as well as the entire lawn area.
On the west side, I would stop at the 5m (16 feet) boundary and wait to build the front garden until the final street is finished – BUT I would like to lay the irrigation pipes for the front lawn now.
In the workshop room behind the garage, I installed a 100mm (4 inch) drainage pipe between the garage and garden – my idea was to have the water connection installed in the garage (with a separate water meter) and then run water and necessary cables between the garage and garden through this conduit, resulting in an irrigation control station position marked in orange.
What I want to irrigate:
Everything – that means the entire lawn area, the hedge, the flower beds in the garden, and the as-yet unplanned flower beds in the front garden.
In my research, I came across irrigation systems by Hunter (and would like to focus the planning on this brand for now).
I plan to control the irrigation valves via KNX (24V AC and a separate actuator are required).
Where I need help (I read the manuals, including Hunter’s, but lack practical experience and hope for your support):
Irrigation planning / experience:
- How would you specifically design the irrigation system for the attached garden layout?
- Ideally including a material list, for example how many zones etc.
- I have a meeting with the plumber on Wednesday – should I tell him to install a 1-inch (or 3/4-inch) outdoor water connection directly?
- Is it possible (pressure loss?) to irrigate the flower beds in the front garden from the irrigation control station located behind the house?
- Any other comments on the garden planning?
The terrace and the path around the house will most likely be covered with 60x60x2cm (24x24x0.8 inch) ceramic slabs laid on drainage mortar (or bedding mortar with bonding agent, gravel, and adhesive).
The house itself is 20cm (8 inches) higher than the garage – we want the living room to lead out almost level onto the terrace.
What we don’t have a good idea or solution for yet: How to design the paving behind the garage up to the house – the almost 70cm (28 inch) space left of the door from the garage to the house should have the same level as the terrace (which is almost too narrow to place a grill there – it would actually be a perfect spot for a grill, but a step up to the terrace would be very difficult).
I hope I was able to convey my questions clearly with my first post here and look forward to your comments.
Daniel
Regarding irrigation, I recommend having it professionally planned.
There are several websites that offer this service for free if you provide them with your garden layout. You will then receive a quote from the respective provider with all the necessary components.
We arranged this through ksRechtsanwältin and can recommend it. The planning there did cost a bit but was credited toward the order. Any parts that were surplus after installation could be returned for a refund.
P.S.
We implemented irrigation for two hedge trimmings, two perennial flower beds, one raised bed, and two zones for the lawn.
All components are from Hunter. For the irrigation controller, we chose the new Hydrawise Pro-HC with weather forecasting and other features—an excellent device.
I did not connect it to KNX, as it was unnecessary given the costs.
P.P.S.
The “Robot Forum,” especially the “Lawn Care/Irrigation” subcategory, was also very helpful for us.
There are several websites that offer this service for free if you provide them with your garden layout. You will then receive a quote from the respective provider with all the necessary components.
We arranged this through ksRechtsanwältin and can recommend it. The planning there did cost a bit but was credited toward the order. Any parts that were surplus after installation could be returned for a refund.
P.S.
We implemented irrigation for two hedge trimmings, two perennial flower beds, one raised bed, and two zones for the lawn.
All components are from Hunter. For the irrigation controller, we chose the new Hydrawise Pro-HC with weather forecasting and other features—an excellent device.
I did not connect it to KNX, as it was unnecessary given the costs.
P.P.S.
The “Robot Forum,” especially the “Lawn Care/Irrigation” subcategory, was also very helpful for us.
@DanielM85
You can plan the irrigation yourself quite well. There are already several threads about this in the forum. I quickly made a plan for two people:
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/Tipps-zur-gartenbewaesserung-gesucht.31154/
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/Leerrohre-auf-Grundstück-Ideen-noch-ist-es-nicht-zu-spät.30853/
A few points on this:
- You want to irrigate directly from the main water supply line. That means your water meter inside the house is the bottleneck. What size do you have installed? A larger pipe going outside will reduce pressure loss, so go up to 1 inch. Depending on the water meter, you can get around 1.5 m³/h (about 53 cubic feet per hour) to 1.8 m³/h (about 64 cubic feet per hour) flow. That’s not very much, so your irrigation zones will be rather small.
- Irrigating the front garden is no problem.
- Using KNX for irrigation here is not particularly practical. You would be better off with an irrigation controller like the Hunter Hydrawise. The only advantage of KNX is that you could run several zones simultaneously. But that won’t help because you don’t have enough water flow in the line anyway...
- Because of your 100 mm (4 inch) pipe, you can only pull the PE-HD pipe through short distances. Hopefully, that’s a straight run; otherwise, it gets difficult.
Take your floor plan and the Hunter datasheets and start placing sprinklers in the corners. The sprinklers need to overlap each other’s coverage. For the hedges, I would recommend running one line on each side. Include the front garden in your plan. For areas you plan to install later, lay the pipes now and put end caps on them.
Once you have distributed all sprinklers, group them logically in a spreadsheet. Take the flow rate per hour from the datasheets. Around 1.5 m³/h is the limit for each zone.
Work through the whole garden this way and determine your number of zones.
It’s not especially complicated for you. For Hunter’s range specifications, only count 90% of their stated values.
Buy a valve box with an air pressure connection. That makes installation much easier.
You can plan the irrigation yourself quite well. There are already several threads about this in the forum. I quickly made a plan for two people:
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/Tipps-zur-gartenbewaesserung-gesucht.31154/
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/Leerrohre-auf-Grundstück-Ideen-noch-ist-es-nicht-zu-spät.30853/
A few points on this:
- You want to irrigate directly from the main water supply line. That means your water meter inside the house is the bottleneck. What size do you have installed? A larger pipe going outside will reduce pressure loss, so go up to 1 inch. Depending on the water meter, you can get around 1.5 m³/h (about 53 cubic feet per hour) to 1.8 m³/h (about 64 cubic feet per hour) flow. That’s not very much, so your irrigation zones will be rather small.
- Irrigating the front garden is no problem.
- Using KNX for irrigation here is not particularly practical. You would be better off with an irrigation controller like the Hunter Hydrawise. The only advantage of KNX is that you could run several zones simultaneously. But that won’t help because you don’t have enough water flow in the line anyway...
- Because of your 100 mm (4 inch) pipe, you can only pull the PE-HD pipe through short distances. Hopefully, that’s a straight run; otherwise, it gets difficult.
Take your floor plan and the Hunter datasheets and start placing sprinklers in the corners. The sprinklers need to overlap each other’s coverage. For the hedges, I would recommend running one line on each side. Include the front garden in your plan. For areas you plan to install later, lay the pipes now and put end caps on them.
Once you have distributed all sprinklers, group them logically in a spreadsheet. Take the flow rate per hour from the datasheets. Around 1.5 m³/h is the limit for each zone.
Work through the whole garden this way and determine your number of zones.
It’s not especially complicated for you. For Hunter’s range specifications, only count 90% of their stated values.
Buy a valve box with an air pressure connection. That makes installation much easier.
H
hampshire11 Jan 2020 09:58In my opinion, you have found a friendly, helpful, and pragmatic expert in @rick2018. He has already helped many people successfully here in the forum. Be nice to him.