Having a green and fresh-looking lawn in your house gives you amazing vibes, but it takes plenty of maintenance to keep looking like that. Apart from mowing the lawn, irrigating it timely is one of the most essential tasks to do if you want to keep your lawn look healthy. However, not everyone has enough time to keep standing out there with the hose and water the whole yard, that too every week! Well, you don’t actually have to put so much stress on your legs and shoulders, especially when you fix the problem by installing a sprinkler.
A sprinkler will not only save your time but also provides convenience as you don’t need to keep standing out there for long. Installing a sprinkler in the lawn is highly beneficial, but do you know what type of sprinkler will be suitable for your requirements? Since there are a bunch of different kinds of sprinklers available out there, you will surely think of choosing the best one. If you are not aware of the types of sprinklers available, we’ll help you know about all of them and also tell you which type of sprinkler will work best for you. So, let’s begin!
What are Lawn Sprinklers?
For those people who are wondering what actually is a sprinkler? Well, the answer is pretty simple! A sprinkler is basically a device that is used for irrigation purposes. In simple words, sprinklers are used to water the lawns, gardens, and similar areas.
You can easily notice sprinklers installed in parks, gardens since they help irrigate the lawn much faster, rather than a person holding the hose for a full day. In large-scale areas, sprinkler systems are installed by connecting network pipes, pumps, and valves to distribute the water all across, then it’s sprinkled over the grass for irrigation.
Types of Lawn Sprinklers
You must be wondering how beneficial a sprinkler can be for your personal lawn, right? Yes, it can be! But, only if you pick the right one. There are basically five most widely used sprinklers, all of which have a few unique things. So, let’s discuss them one by one and see their benefits and find if they are suitable for your lawn or not.
Inground Sprinkler Systems
The inground sprinklers are usually connected by the main water supply of your house and are set to a system whose control totally remains in your hands. In this system, multiple sprinkler heads are installed throughout the lawn area at some designated position.
Either you can control the sprinklers to pop up and water the lawn, or you can set a timer for the sprinklers to do the job at a certain time automatically. Since the in-ground sprinklers support automatic operation, it’s a good option to use for all sizes of lawns. It’s just that you will need more sprinkler heads to cover a large area.
Stationary Sprinklers
As the name suggests, stationary sprinklers are fixed at one place on the lawn. Being fixed, they are only capable of casting water at a specific area only, in a certain pattern. If there are some hard-to-reach areas in your lawn where other sprinkler systems fail to cast water. You can simply install a stationary sprinkler there and fix it to water that specific area only.
One major benefit of using stationary sprinklers is that they provide precise watering, quickly. And, since these sprinklers target one specific area of the garden, the best possible use of stationary sprinklers is to water the flowerbeds.
Traveling Sprinklers
Traveling sprinklers actually move around in your lawn in a preset pattern. For moving, the sprinklers don’t need any extra power source since they move with the help of water that flows through the wheels. While moving, the hose on the top sprinkles water all across the area.
Unlike other sprinklers, these ones require a person to keep an eye since they move across the open-wide lawn. In general, they are used to water large-sized gardens and parks as they require continuous irrigation. Hence, if you are thinking of using this one in your backyard, don’t!
Impact Sprinklers
You might be wondering why they are named impact sprinklers. Basically, inside this sprinkler head, there’s a hammer that keeps hitting from time to time and helps to generate powerful jet steam or showers. You will usually notice them in parks as they are widely used there. Since impact sprinklers offer a powerful water throw, they can cover a large area pretty easily.
Also, the head of the sprinkler can be adjusted to either stay stationary, rotate left and right to cover a pie-shaped area. You could use them in your lawn or backyard if the size is decent, even two such sprinklers will do the job. However, impact sprinklers are not recommended to use near flower beds since the pressurized water stream may damage the flowers.
Oscillating Sprinklers
For a small-sized lawn, we will always prefer using an oscillating sprinkler since it’s the easiest to install and use. You can simply connect the sprinkler to a water pipe and place it in your lawn, the rest of the work will be handled by the sprinkler itself. Oscillating sprinklers usually have a long-tube design that has several holes in it for spraying water. Once the pressure gets built in the sprinkler, it also helps the sprinkler head to oscillate and spray water in all directions.
It’s highly suitable for home use since it gives a nice rain-like effect and is highly convenient to use. However, at the first installation, you will have to play around with it a little to find the right pressure point suitable for your size of the lawn. If it builds too much pressure, the water may go out of your lawn. On the other hand, if the pressure is not enough, the sprinkler may even fail to cover your lawn area.
Features of Lawn Sprinklers
Automatic timers, flow timers, and automatic shutoff valves can help make operating your sprinkler system easy and effortless.
Sprinkler systems are very convenient to use, however, there are a few more modern features that make the sprinklers smart. Features like automatic timers, automatic turn-Off, and flow timer allow you to control the sprinkler system according to your needs and likings.
- Automatic timer: The automatic timer feature is the most common one that you will find in all types of sprinklers these days. The timer feature lets you set a specific time for the sprinkler to start watering the lawn. You can program it to work early in the morning and wake up to a freshly watered lawn.
- Flow timer: Several kinds of sprinklers allow you to monitor the amount of water they use and control it. With the help of this feature, you can easily set how much water you want to use on your lawn.
- Automatic Turn-Off: Earlier, there had to be someone who needed to keep an eye on traveling sprinklers as they keep sprinkling water unless you stop them. However, with the Automatic Turn-Off feature, it becomes easy to cut off the water supply to the sprinkler once it completes its regular traveling pattern. This feature hugely helps to save water and prevents water logging on the lawn.
Conclusion
So, if you have read the article up till this point, we assume you have gone through the article thoroughly. Since we have mentioned all the most commonly used sprinkler types, you should be having a decent idea about all of them. Hence, there should not be any issue while picking the right one for your lawn. Generally, for smaller lawns, you can use combinations of oscillating sprinklers or stationary sprinklers. On the other hand, for a larger area, traveling, in-ground, and impact sprinklers are absolutely some good options to pick.
