Michigan grass is vulnerable to the summer heat and the dry spells that hit the south western part of the state. Grand Rapids is particularly hard hit because the area just doesn’t get enough rain. If your grass is green all summer, then you are probably the envy of the neighbourhood. The residents that have to drag hoses around covered with dirt, bugs and other odd looking debris don’t have any fun keeping their grass green so they probably don’t go to the effort of watering their grass by some manual means.
There is a solution to dry, brown grass and it is called an irrigation system. You can install one of these yourself, but the professionals at Irrigation in Grand Rapids will do it better every time. An irrigation company will draw a diagram of your yard and decide where to run the main irrigation lines and where to install the smaller diameter feeding water lines to the emitters. This is only part of the design process. A professional company will measure your water pressure and your water flow rate which is measured in Gallons Per Minute or GPM. This will help the professionals decide what kind of emitters to install and where.
Pop-up emitters that rotate, and stationary emitters that will water a specific area are selected and placed on the diagram. All of the irrigation is accomplished by a controller which is pre-set to turn the water lines on and off at the appropriate times. The yard can be divided into zones and each zone can be set to water for a certain number of minutes. The controller can be set to water each zone or multiple zones a number of times a day for a certain number of minutes.
One of the rotating sprinkler heads that is used in an irrigation system was patented by the Rainbird Corp. in 1933. This emitter head and many other emitter parts are still functional and used in Irrigation in Grand Rapids. This watering system can be used for flower beds and flower pots. When you no longer need to water until next year, you can turn the controller off.
