The Different Types of Sprinkler Heads: What Each Means for Your Lawn
When designing a professional irrigation sprinkler system, there are a number of different sprinkler heads to utilize in order to achieve optimal sprinkler water coverage. Naturally every sprinkler system installation is different, so our crew is familiar with each and every variety of sprinkler spray pattern and their amounts of water used.
In general sprinkler heads can be broken down into two categories: rotor heads and spray heads. In turn, each of those categories contain several different variations, and as the industry progresses the lines between the two general categories continue to become blurred.
Spray Heads and Rotor Heads
The difference between a sprinkler spray head and a sprinkler rotor head lies in how they each apply the water to your lawn.
With a rotor head, the sprinkler head actually rotates as it sprays in order to achieve a large water coverage area. Meanwhile, spray heads are typically stationary, with a fixed spray in a pattern dependent on the sprinkler nozzle that’s affixed.
At Commercial Lawn Irrigation, we utilize both in order to completely water your lawn. Spray heads are especially handy for tight corners, small plots of landscaping, or harder to reach sections of your yard, while rotary sprinklers are perfect to cover larger swaths of grass.
Types of Rotor Heads
Rotor heads maximize the effectiveness inherent in gear-driven water applications to cover the largest possible area of your lawn with water. These heads are the most commonly utilized when installing a sprinkler system because they are the most efficient watering heads for sprinklers available when a customer is in need of watering a large area.
There are many different sprinkler head variations we use on the job that fall under the rotary sprinkler category, however. Here is a detailed break down:
Pop Up Heads
Pop up heads water your lawn exactly how you’d expect. They’re installed at ground level so that they are practically invisible until the automatic sprinkler timer they are paired with triggers the watering time.
Once triggered, these gear-driven sprinklers rise out of the ground and start watering your lawn. These are the most common types of rotary heads Commercial Lawn Irrigation utilizes, the biggest reason being when they aren’t active there are no distractions visible for your beautiful green yard.
Multiple Stream Heads
Multiple stream heads might just be the prettiest variety of rotary sprinkler heads to watch in action. When your sprinkler system is properly zoned with multiple stream heads, the effect can feel a bit like watching decorative fountains watering your lawn.
These heads are also gear-driven, but, as the name implies, they emit multiple streams of water at once, each stream appearing to rotate as the gear turns the sprinkler head nozzle.
Multiple stream heads are especially effective for watering uphill slopes or uneven terrain throughout your yard.
Types of Spray Heads
Spray heads comprise the general category of stationary sprinkler heads designed to apply a consistent amount of water to a smaller, more defined section of your yard, garden, or landscaping.
These heads come with a large variety of sprinkler nozzles they achieve different fixed spray patterns that boast a variety of water pressure and water usage rates. When designing your sprinkler system, these spray heads are a perfect way to tailor your watering efforts to the plants you already have in your yard.
Bubbler Heads
Bubbler heads are a common category of spray heads that are especially great for establishing new plants in your yard or garden. Bubblers slowly flood the ground surface around the base of your plants, letting the water seep straight down to their newer roots to facilitate a deep, healthy root system for years to come.
As you’ve probably learned by now, each of these types of heads can include a number of variations, and bubbler heads are no different. Bubbler heads can be specialized for different amounts of water, which is useful if you have a diversified garden.
These head types can range from micro bubblers to flood bubblers to stream bubblers, which can reach up to 5 feet of coverage.
-
Truthfully, there are 3 main types of sprinkler heads: spray heads, rotary spray heads, and drip or soaker heads, which are typically used in greenhouses or for specific landscaping applications.
We actually put together a more in-depth blog on drip irrigation here! -
The best sprinkler head to use for a flower bed will largely depend on the type of plants you’re using, but you really can’t go wrong with a drip irrigation system, because you can tailor the water usage and water application to exactly what your plants require. There’s really nothing better!
-
We will be putting together a blog dedicated to this topic in the near future, but in the meantime, there’s a great video that can be found here!
Sprinkler heads will often be adjusted using a specialized screw tool that can tweak the direction of the water spray.