Has anyone else had retic drama's (stupid question I feel) and what have you found that works,
I reckon after 9 years I have tried it all but finally seem to be onto it, well it works better than it ever has.When we bought the place, the previous owners father owned a retic shop and we had miles of of retic hoses everywhere, the main lawn was watered by 3 huge popup ticka ticka sprinklers (hope you know what I Mean), enough to water the WACA cricket ground, pumped out more water than Mundairing Weir at overflow but didn't actually wet the lawn much, only at the end of the jet, have no idea why 3 as one would have cone plenty so they came out along with about 3 miles of poly pipe and many micro sprays and drippers and smaller popups.
We are lucky to have 2 water meters so one drives the retic and one the house, having 2 meters doesn't appear to cost that much extra as we are always on the lower charge and just below the town average use, where as if we had one we would be well above average use and pay the higher rate.
Every year for 9 years I have had to tinker with the retic, I have tried cheap and expensive sprinklers and now my findings, what I think are good and bad.
The best popups are the ones where you can change the head and screw on another, they generally come with just a white top screwed on with a wide mouth so you can flush the crap out.
I have tried full circles, half circles, 1/4 circles, 3/4 circles but the best are the adjustable circles, they seem to throw much further and if they block up open them to full circle and they flush out, below is an example of what I use, the adjustable nozzles are black where as the ones in the pic are the now sacked half circles, you can see how they screw off for changing, handy and cheaper if you hit one with the mower, and when you use a 1/4 or half circle they always are a tad small on angle for what you want to cover so you can have any spray angle you want, they're are different variants of the popup in the picture, the example costs less than $5 each
Attachment:
retic.jpg [ 59.65 KiB | Viewed 18084 times ]
My Main yard is 10 metres by 20 metres and the popups spray around 5 metres in radius so to allow for overlap and the occasional low pressure I have my popups about 6 metres apart, in the above area I have 8 popups but they also water the fruit trees and other trees on the outside of the lawn, the popups use 2 stations and run for 30 minutes each every 2nd day and with at the height of summer and twice a week in spring and autumn, they are very efficient at these settings.
What doesn't work are they cheap $2 popups you get at some hardware and discount shops, best to spend a couple of dollars more and do the job properly or you will be changing things forever, putting in retic is hard work and very frustrating when in fails, spend now and save later, or you will try and save now and fork out more later.
Also a waste of time are micro sprays and drippers they block up always, and the mist from the micro's blows all over the place and is hardly enough water to make the plants survive, in summer the water they put out evaporates before the plant gets benefit anyhow, you can get risers from 6" to 3 feet to get your pop higher off the ground, and I find it best to hand water hanging baskets, if you go on holidays then get your baskets closer to the ground so the popups can water them.
Well my 2c worth, I am happy to answer questions as I haven't covered the whole 9 years and have had just about all the stuff ups you can have, the best advice probably doesn't come from the hardware store as they generally sell you whatever they can and don't know enough about it, A proper retic shop is the best, you may pay slightly more but the advice you get is priceless, these guys work with it all the time and know there business, we are fortunate to have a shop that specializes in retic in town (and home brew also, double bonus
) and they don't stock crap.What do others think and use, no doubt we will end up with heaps of different theories, mine probably isn't perfect but works, after looking at other posted Idea's I may have to change again
. Next time I set it up I will put a float switch on the barrel and have it filled from the water tank as it drops and have the filling on a timer to make sure I don't leave it running for days on end. The thing about this type of watering is that it is done very slowly and utlilises the capilary action of the soil. Generally I would leave it running for 4 hours at a time.
Roundup time again. 
