We just moved to a new house in west Houston and have water from the city. The house already had a Rainbird sprinkler system installed, but most of the heads do not seem to pop up all the way. As a result, the yard isn't getting proper coverage. I had a contractor come out to check the heads to see if replacing or lifting them up would help things, but he suggested the real issue was with the water pressure coming from the city.

The pressure inside our house is hit or miss; some taps seem fine enough and others are on the low end of acceptable so I'm not sure how to read that. I know the city is dealing with an inordinate number of leaks under these drought conditions, but I'm curious if anyone has had a similar experience. The contractor suggested upsizing the supply line connection to the sprinkler system might help the problem (can't remember, but something like going from 1/2" to 3/4"), but didn't seem super confident it was a reliable fix if the overall pressure of the system was too low.

Doing my best to keep the lawn semi alive, but the intense heat, watering restrictions, and these sprinkler issues are making it quite annoying. Appreciate any advice/suggestions!

Larger area zones have less pressure than smaller ones? Can you do a bucket test on a spigot and check your pressure? And then say which nozzles you have on each head of smallest zone? And what your meter size is. Any street water line work been done by the city?

Primary reason is water main leaks the city is not fixing due to the drought. Water restrictions are due to water pressure vs. lack of water.

Our house pressure was fine till the drought. City just needs to do their job..

One of Buzbee's campaign issue he is running on is the lack of attention to water leaks in the west Houston district. The city always puts us last on the list, even though we pay somewhere around 30+% of the tax revenues.

The unfixed water leaks are ridiculous. Daily, I drive past at least 4-5 (that I notice) that have been going for a while when driving between my home near Westbury and work in the Galleria.

One of these leaks is on Hillcroft just south of Braeswood that has been going for well over a month. It's a column of water coming 6"-8" vertically out of a joint in the middle of the road. It's impossible to miss and inexcusable that it hasn't been fixed yet. Fortunately for me, my water pressure doesn't seem to be impacted by it, but I imagine those right next to it are effected.

Do you have a Pressure regulator on the supply line to the house? If you have one, I'd get it checked out first. They can be adjusted... they also go bad after a few years.

If pressure has dropped in the supply due to breaks, not a lot you can do about it.
Hopefully the city gets the issues fixed on their end.

Does your controller have a pressure regulator? I can set mine anywhere from 0% to 100% pressure at the controller.

No water line work on our street or nearby that I have noticed (nor conspicuous leaks). I tried the 5 gallon bucket test on one of the spigots last night and it took a full minute to fill up with no other water usage going on in the house. That seems quite low, right? I'll have to look at the specific heads and zones later, but generally, most are fixed (i.e., not rotating) 180 or 360 degree pop up heads.

Quote:

---

I can set mine anywhere from 0% to 100% pressure at the controller.

---

You sure about that? What is the make/model of your controller?

I've installed flow meters, flow sensors, are pressure regulators but never anything that could adjust pressure from the controller. I think you are mistaken, but happy to be wrong.

Apache said:

---

Quote:

---

I can set mine anywhere from 0% to 100% pressure at the controller.

---

You sure about that? What is the make/model of your controller?

I've installed flow meters, flow sensors, are pressure regulators but never anything that could adjust pressure from the controller. I think you are mistaken, but happy to be wrong.

---

Rainbird. There is a setting to change the throughput. I called it pressure but I guess I should call it throughput. I assume its what% it opens the valve.

Maybe you are thinking of the seasonal adjust function?
It changes the base run times as a function of a percentage.
ie if your zones are set at 10 minutes per station, adjusting to 50% will change the run time of all zones to 5 minutes.

The sprinkler valves are either open or closed, they don't open partially unless something is wrong.

Apache said:

---

Maybe you are thinking of the seasonal adjust function?
It changes the base run times as a function of a percentage.
ie if your zones are set at 10 minutes per station, adjusting to 50% will change the run time of all zones to 5 minutes.

The sprinkler valves are either open or closed, they don't open partially unless something is wrong.

---

The valves are always pressurized and are either open or closed unless you shut it off at your main shutoff for your system. Its nothing but a per zone power wire and 1 shared common wire to the zones to trigger the opening of each zone.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Apache said:
Maybe you are thinking of the seasonal adjust function?
It changes the base run times as a function of a percentage.
ie if your zones are set at 10 minutes per station, adjusting to 50% will change the run time of all zones to 5 minutes.

The sprinkler valves are either open or closed, they don't open partially unless something is wrong.

---

The valves are always pressurized and are either open or closed unless you shut it off at your main shutoff for your system. Its nothing but a per zone power wire and 1 shared common wire to the zones to trigger the opening of each zone.

---

*Valves are not always pressurized.
*They are always either open or closed unless something is wrong, doesn't matter if the isolation valve is open or not.
*Each valve will have one hot wire & one common is correct. Unless it's two wire system. Or the valve is controlled by a battery powered controller like a NODE. Or if the valve is part of a hydraulic system (rare these days).

Unrelated note.. in the past I've dealt with extending zones, trying to fix busted working, or reconfiguring the zone itself.

I keep thinking there should be a technology that doesn't need the buried wire. Conceptually I think one could be made and use a wireless low power protocol like BLE.

But then I think about the market being quite small for people who want to do that after the fact. Wires and valves are all cheap when the group is torn up and trenched.

This is what we use when 110 power isn't available. They will last 5 or more.


Hunter Node

5gpm is not ideal. Find the model nozzles you are running and determine the flow rate based on your water pressure and number of heads. My guess is that there are too many heads on a zone. Maybe it was fine before your pressure decreased from the city issues. But now it's a different story.

For what it's worth, I measured 12pm from a 1/2in spigot at my house. 80psi