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I am using Rainbird brand irrigation kit to water my garden and am trying to find the optimal layout for the sprayers. The kit i bought connects from a standard garden hose to the 1/4" hose that can be configured with about 12 sprayer/bubblers attached. Problem is i'm losing pressure about halfway though the setup.

Here is the current setup. I begin to lose pressure around the third set of sprayers. the last four have little to no water coming out:

enter image description here

I'm thinking of actually forking at the water source before the sprayers, then having 6 on each branch instead of one line trying to power all 12. So something like this: enter image description here

Which one would be a more efficient use of water? Or is there another setup i should try? Maybe every sprayer has it's own line off the main line?

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    Both diagrams will act the same on the last 4 sprinklers (leaves of the tree), I believe, but this is probably more of a fluid dynamics question for physics.stackexchange.com. Having used this product before, there's just an upper limit for how many outputs (of a given type) you can have per timer box/valve.
    – Sam
    Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 19:51
  • Is there any significant elevation change from head to head? Gravity does things to water on a sloped lot. Can you feed the network from both ends? That helps to even out the pressure drops.
    – HABO
    Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 23:29

2 Answers 2

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Having that many heads on at 1 time you may not be able to get proper coverage.

I would defiantly say the branched setup so you can run half at a time if needed.

It’s not so much efficiency but coverage that will be effected. Or possibly our terminology needs to match.

Separate branches run independently will cover more area and provide a more even coverage pattern.

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  • Yes, coverage is what i mean. Ideally i'd like to be able to water all 12 spots at once though..
    – EMAW2008
    Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 21:01
  • It may be possible i have done a few places and found we always try to stretch our systems then end up with dead spots. If you have the pressure making 2 separate branches would be wise. Having 2 feeders to the zones will help eliminate restrictions. If it won’t quite do it with both then you could install a y valve or solenoids. The Y would be manual or solenoids that normally need a controller for full automatic.
    – Ed Beal
    Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 21:29
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#2 is definitely better.

But for $6 or so, you can buy an Orbit 61008 drip irrigation manifold and be able to adjust each of the 8 lines, while not having dead spots. The problem with your setup is that bigger dripper heads can take almost all the water off of your 1/4" pipes leaving the outer drippers starved.

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