My feelings are "if you can afford - it do it" and sleep safe at night, it is the wisest investment you will ever make!
Wanting to install a residential sprinkler system can bring up a few issues for homes on tank or bore water using a water pump pressure system.
Here are a few things for you to look at:
A water pump should have the ability for a flow rate of around 150 L/m, slightly higher than a standard domestic pump of around 60 to 80 L/m
Pump pressure: a minimum of 60 psi
Remember water pressure and volume are very different
Your inlet to the pump and supply line to the house should be 32mm or greater because of the flow rate needed (volume) especially if it is over a distance; you need to consider line losses. The engineer will do a flow rate test on this.
Your pump will also need a minimum of 25mm inlet and outlet
For any home sprinkler system it is advised to have a minimum available flow rate of 120 L/m when the sprinkler system is activated
If you have a water filtration or UV filtration system installed, be sure that it can cope with this flow rate........ Many can’t, they are either 15 or 20mm outlets. This configuration will only allow a flow rate of 20 to 50 L/m.
If the filters are not replaced regularly then flow rates can go down to 30 L/m rendering a home sprinkler system useless.
Remember: 15mm alkathene pipe will give you about 12 to 20 litres per minute flow max.
If you have town’s water mains connection it should be 25 mm to get to 120 L/m. You will need to check your underground connection as in some parts of Auckland the underground council mains pipe work in the road, before your meter, can be as small as 15mm. Check pipe sizes both side of your meter.
This is not intended as a technical document, just a few quick bullet points for anyone thinking about a sprinkler system and what to look for before employing an engineer to give you a report on what you have and what you need.
It’s always good to know what you may be in for and not have a nasty shock.
At UV Water Systems Ltd we can supply water filtration and UV filtration system to meet your flow rate requirements. Some of our UV systems have flow rates up to 400 L/m.
Go to www.uvwatersystems.co.nz and check out our products