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central Missouri

My patch is uphill from the house so my water pressure is low to start with. The pressure is constantly changing as the pressure tank fills and empties over and over again making it hard to get even coverage from my sprinkler system. I've got other gardens and landscaping that I water too so my well pump really gets a workout in the summer months. I recently read about cycle stop valves, a type of constant pressure valve. It seems as though this would solve both the problem of fluctuating water pressure and my worries about wearing out the pump. What are your thoughts? Anyone using one of these? What other solutions might there be to fluctuating pressure and worries about shortening pump life?
http://www.johndeerelandscapes.com/_Products/Irrg_wellpump.asp
http://www.cyclestopvalves.com/geninfo.html
Mark

6/19/2006 5:13:50 PM

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Here in Cheyenne, when we are putting sprinkler systems on wells, we have to be sure the volume of water being put out is high enough that when the system is running, the pump stays on all the time. That eliminates the pressure changes. To do that, we either use larger nossles which allow more water out at one time, or add additional heads to the zone.

6/19/2006 5:36:46 PM

Eau Claire, WI

I have a 600 gallon plastic tank ($150 or so at a farm supply store) that is fairly close to the garden that I fill off my well pump. Then I have a separate water pump and a small presure tank that I use to pump water from the tank into my garden. This allows me to get much higher pressure than I could ever get from my well pump (since my garden is 300 yards from the house). I bought some electrical wire and put a couple plugs on the 2 ends to get power from the house to the garden pump. It works great. I can run 6-8 sprinkler heads at the same time.

My guess you are going to have to do something like this because you need higher water pressure (the low end of your pump pressure range is inadequate).

6/19/2006 11:42:35 PM

Castro Valley California

See Jess Stryker Irrigation tutorials. Link:
http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/index.html
http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/sprinkler00.htm

7/24/2006 4:27:47 PM