If you are like many middle-class Americans these days you are on a fixed budget. You probably also have a lawn that you pride yourself in keeping lush and green during the summer. You are also more than likely frustrated with a yellow lawn on the hottest days of the summer or perhaps you get annoyed about hose trails of dead grass areas where your garden hose sits on the grass. Well, I have the solution for you.
You can have an underground sprinkler system without paying through the nose for a professional sprinkler system. The pipes are under ground and the retractable sprinklers are in the ground flush with the lawn, just like the pros. The only difference: you can get all the materials at your local Menards, Home Depot, or any hardware or home and garden store.

 Your Sprinkler System - Important Facts to Remember

1. Sprinkler is a high pressure irrigation system.
2. Due to the high pressure requirement, you can have only one sprinker per line at a given time. So if you want to operate four sprinker heads on your lawn, you will bring four seperate PVC lines to each of the sprinker head.
3. Each of these PVC lines will end near your single hose bib.


Lawn Sprinkler

4. Using a multi-adapter timer combination, the single hose bib will be connected to all the 4 PVC lines.
5. Timers are set in such a way that only one PVC line will be open at any given time.

Getting Started - Planning

Just like any task, getting started is the tricky part. Before you start to build your in ground sprinkler system, you need to get the following parts.

1. Several links of garden hose and brass hose fittings. The standard garden hose in the United States is 5/8 inches in diameter.
2. PVC barbed fittings that fit into standard garden hose, 5/8 inches in diameter. Hose clamps and silicon goop.
3. PVC pipe, elbows, and PVC cement. The PVC cement comes in two parts, the purple primer and the glue.


Brass hose fittings for a sprinkler system

4. Retractible sprinklers, barbed fittings for the sprinklers and small hose clamps
5. Sprinkler tubing
6. Multi-hose adaptor-connector for hose bib with control valves
7. Hose timers

Preparing the Area for the Sprinkler System
Installing the sprinkler system will require you to tear up at least part of your lawn.  What you should do first is with a spray marker, mark the areas where you want to run the underground sprinkler pipes.  Also, you need to keep in mind that the PVC pipes that come up above the ground for the hose to go to the hose bib should be as close to the hose bib as possible to reduce the amount of hose length needed.

Taking the Trench - Use a Flat Spade to Minimize Damage to Grass
Next you should take a flat spade to cut the sod in the outline of the trench for each sprinkler line.  This will allow you to lift up the grass and preserve it, reducing the necessity to reseed where the trenches are.  The flat spade allows you to cut the sod and lift it off the dirt.  This can save your grass somewhat.  The trenches should be no more than a foot deep.

Laying the Sprinkler Piping
Measure the distance between the sprinker head location and the location you are going to end the PVC pipe (near the hose bib). Cut the PVC pipe and lay the sprinkler piping in the trenches.

Connecting the pipes to the sprinker heads.
Connect the PVC pipe to the  threaded end of the barbed sprinkler connector and then take the silicon goop and coat the barbed end of the connector.  Be careful not to get any sand or dirt on the goop.  This can cause leaking.  Take the sprinkler piping and slide it onto the barbed end of the sprinkler connector.  Then tighten the hose clamp on the sprinkler pipe until the clamp is so tight that you cannot turn the screw anymore.   At the other end of the pipe, you need to use a “S” shaped PVC pipe to go up to ground level.   Note, that you should have one sprinkler per line.   Having more than one sprinkler head per line can reduce the effectiveness of your system.

Connecting the Lines to the Hoses
Making the link from the sprinkler pipe to the hose is rather easy.   Assembling the connector that links the sprinkler pipe to the hose is done as follows:

1. Cut the PVC pipe to the right length.  For aesthetic reasons, you should keep the top of the PVC pipe as close to the ground as possible.  This way the pipes can be hidden either behind a large hosta or a hollow boulder that can be bought at any Menards.  Usually the right lengths for these pipes should be a bit more  than a foot.   A foot and four inches would be a good length.
2. After cutting the PVC pipe, you will notice that the hacksaw will leave a coarse cut.  Take a coarse grade sand paper and sand the cut ends down until smooth. 
   Then take the elbows and take the purple primer and swab inside the elbow and outside the pipe around the cut ends of the pipe.   The purple primer will dry in seconds.  It will be a light purple in color on the white PVC. 
3. Then swab the PVC cement onto the outer side of the cut pipe and inside the elbow and push the pipe into the elbow.  The bond will set in five seconds and be fully cured in seven seconds.  PVC cement hardens quickly, so connect the pieces when you have swabbed the cement to the parts.  The length of PVC pipe and the two elbows glued together should have an S-shape.
4. At the bottom of the pipe, you need to have a threaded connecter to connect to the PVC line. 


Four way hose connector

5. At the top of the pipe you need to cement a barbed connector that is the size of the garden hose.  The average garden hose in the United States is 5/8 inches in diameter so keep that in mind when you buy the adaptor.  Take the silicon goop and coat the barbed fitting well and coat the inside of the hose as well.  Slide the hose onto the barbed end, then tighten the hose clamp until you cannot turn the screw anymore. 
6. Follow steps 1 through 5 for each sprinkler line and position the pipes to come up to ground level in places as close to the hose bib as possible.   When assembly is complete, cover the trenches and gently tap the sod into place using a tamper.

Connecting the Hoses From the Pipe to the Hose Bib
This is the simplest part of the process.  You do not want to have the system set up to have more than one sprinkler per hose bib.  This can drastically reduce water pressure and your lawn will not get even water coverage.  The steps to connect the hoses from the sprinkler lines to the hose bib are as follows.

• First, take the multi-hose adapter and screw it onto the hose bib on your house.  If you use a timer, make sure all the valves on the hose adapter are open.
• Screw on the timers to each of the connectors on the multi-hose adapter.  You might need a short extension hose that is a few inches long if the multi-hose adaptor has the hose connectors too close together.  These short extension hoses are readily available at any home and garden store.


Hose Timer

• Screw on the hoses to the timers and set the timers.  If you have a long length of garden hose and had to cut it in several lengths, get a brass fitting that is designed to screw onto a hose bib with a barbed end for the hose.  Follow step E above for connecting the hose to the barbed end of the brass fitting.

Now you are almost ready to go.  The next thing you need to do is to test the system and then when satisfied set the timers.

Proper Watering and Setting Your Timers
The proper time to water your lawn is either early in the morning or late in the evening, when the sun is not at its hottest.   Many people have their lawns in the sun, so watering properly is crucial.  The hot sun heats the ground where the roots of the grass is in.  The cold water onto the heated roots can shock the grass and kill it.  Some hose timers are designed so you set the clock and then set the dial for six in the morning or six in the evening or at both times. 

A Trick I Use to Easily Set the Timers
To set several timers for the same interval but at different times can be tricky. To get around this, I simply set the first timer to the right time (clock time) so that the first line goes on at six in the morning or six in the evening or both.  Then for the rest of the timers, decide on how long you want to water.  Then set the clocks of the other timers for the time to be the amount of minutes later. 

Lawn Sprinkler

For example, if you want each sprinkler to water for 15 minutes, set the first timer (which is set to the clock time) to start at 6:00 AM.  Set the clock on the second timer so that it is the hour at 15 minutes after the hour, etc.  That is, the first timer clock will turn on the sprinkler at six in the morning.  The second timer has the clock set at 15 minutes after the hour, therefore it thinks that 6:15 in the morning is actually six in the morning and turns on the second sprinkler at 6:15 in the morning.  The third timer is then set at 30 minutes after the hour and so on.  This way as one sprinkler turns off the other will turn on and the water pressure will remain the same. You don’t have to do this trick if you like all the timers to show the correct clock time.

Remember that proper water coverage is important.  It wouldn’t hurt to have some of the sprinklers overlap to avoid those unsightly dry spots.

Different Sprinkler Heads
Choosing your sprinkler heads can be very tricky.  There is a huge variety of sprinkler heads available out there and some throw water out 20 feet where other larger heads throw water out as far as 100 feet.  Many of your major home improvement stores, such as Menards, Home Depot, or Lowe’s have a wide variety of sprinkler heads available for reasonable prices. 

Maintaining Maximum Water Pressure
Maintaining the maximum water pressure is very important.  Usually the water pressure coming out of the hose bib is at about 35 to 40 psi and you want to try to maintain that throughout the whole system.  Important tips for keeping the maximum water pressure are as follows:

• Do not make sprinkler lines longer than 20 feet.  Sprinkler piping is much smaller that your average garden hose.
• Minimize elbows.  Some elbows are necessary such as in the PVC pipes that go up above the ground and the sprinkler connectors.  Elbows do reduce water pressure.  If you have a bend, when you dig your trench make wide curves for the pipe.  This will allow the water to flow freely.
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• Read the labels on the sprinkler heads.  Usually on the sprinkler head you have information on how far the sprinkler will throw water at what psi.  For example, A sprinkler head that throws water 50 feet will throw the water at that distance at 30 psi.  Keep in mind that a 20 foot line at the end the pressure will be more like 20 psi, so the water will not go as far.

The average cost for such a system would run about  $300 and it should take the average homeowner a whole weekend to put together.

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