Automated sprinkler systems take a lot of work out of watering either your garden or lawn. I'm sure we've all done it the hard way, right. You know the drill, standing over each section of the garden or yard in order to get a consistent coverage of water. You may have tried the old method of using your fingers or thumb over the end of the garden hose to spray the water. Then again, you may have used a sprayer nozzle to form a stream of water spray. Of course there's the oscillating water sprayers that distribute water back and forth and the good old soaker hoses.
The problem with these methods are that they all require your time and attention to distribute the water evenly and without flooding any one area. You could say the manual methods can eliminate this trouble, but how much time do you want to be the manual sprinkler anyway? Oscillating sprinklers do the work, but they must often be moved to get a good general coverage of the area needed. But there is an easier and more efficient way that is not only automated, but can be built to evenly water gardens and/or lawns to just the right level for maximum growth, without wasting water or flooding the area. This system is called an automated sprinkler system and here's how it works.
It all starts with an automatic sprinkler controller that is the brains of the operation. With this controller, you can control one or many sprinkler heads and different sprinkler zones. The preset times can be set and you have the ability to adjust the water-pressure levels for each of the zone sprinklers. This comes in handy if one area, maybe a sandy area, needs more water than a low-lying area. Since it is programmable, you can turn on the system and tell it when to shut itself off.
The controller is wired and water lines are connected to remote-controlled water valves. These valves open to allow water flow to run the sprinklers in that zone via the command of the controller. Once the watering cycle is complete, the controller will tell the valve to close, thus shutting off the water to that zone.
The water valves are connected to water lines that are in turn connected to individual sprinkler heads that distribute the water. There will likely be many sprinkler heads per zone.
Now, we've learned that the controller tells the first valve to opens and that zone of sprinklers spray water until its cycle is over and then the valve closes on that zone, let's call it zone 1. Then, the controller opens zone 2 valve until it fulfills its watering task. Again that zone's valve is closed and we're off to the next zone and so on until all have fulfilled their watering tasks.
Now you may ask how in the world do I determine how long to set the program to water? It may be a trial and error work in progress, or you can automate that too. This is where the addition of a moisture sensor comes into play. You see, the moisture sensor can tell if there is adequate moisture and can override the preset watering time. This is also a great water saver and in the event of rainy days, it would sense moisture and turn the system off.
As you can see, this is quite a system indeed! Once the initial investment is made and the installation is complete, you've worked as hard as you're going to. What a way to water! So what are you waiting for? Can you see the advantage of owning one of these systems? Oh yeah, they can be wired with a two-way power-line interface that allows you to control the system from a remote control!
