Before you drill a well, you need to know how it will effect your life. Automated sprinklers can make your life easier, and even though they are more difficult to set up on a well than on a municipal water line, it is still possible as long as you know what you are doing. When you have a drill, you just need to make sure that you set your system up correctly.
Pressure
Sprinkler heads are designed to operate at a certain pressure. Water wells will use a pressure tank to make sure that you have enough pressure to operate the various appliances in your home. Your well pump will pump water into the tank until it reaches a certain pressure, and then the pump will shut off. If your pressure tank shuts off too soon, you will never have enough pressure to run your sprinklers at their optimum level. Your pressure tank will have a switch box with 240 volts of current running through it, so you should leave making adjustments to the pressure rating to a professional plumber or sprinkler technician.
Flow Rate
Each sprinkler head on your system will use a certain number of gallons per minute. If you put too many heads on one zone, they will drain too much pressure from your tank, and you will get a weakened flow rate. If you put too few heads on a zone, they will drain your tank, then your pump will kick on and fill the tank back up, and your pump will continue cycling in this way until the sprinklers shut off. A pump that is constantly turning on and off will wear out sooner than it should. The key is use just enough heads on each zone to keep your pump constantly running.
To find out how many gallons per minute your pump generates, you want to fill a five gallon bucket up while you time how long it takes your pump to do so. You may have to stop the timer a couple times as you empty the bucket and start over, but you will get a good idea of your flow rate.
In order to make sure that your sprinklers perform like they should and that your pump does not wear out too soon, you need to carefully design your sprinkler system. If you doubt your ability to install sprinklers correctly, you will need to call in the professionals to do the work for you. It will cost more money, but nothing is worse than getting your system installed and then realizing that it will never run like it should. For more information on setting up sprinklers with well systems, contact a business such as Schneider Water Services.
