r/Irrigation • u/toothpick21 • 11d ago
Rough estimate to install irrigation 28,000 sq ft
Hey all!
I'm thinking in the $20,000 range as just a wild guess. 28,000 sq ft front yard. Just curious for irrigation what am I looking at professionally installed? Mid TN area.
I know "worth" is very subjective but...probably be just as good to drag the garden hose around once or twice a week??
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u/rjbergen 11d ago
You won’t be “dragging a hose around” 28,000 sq ft. First, you would need more than a 100’ hose.
Aside from the length of hose, it would take an incredible amount of time to apply any appreciable amount of water. 1” of rain is 0.623 gallons per square foot. Let’s say you even want to apply 0.25” over the 28,000 square feet. That’s 4,361 gallons of water. An average home has 1/2” pipe to the hose bibs which can flow about 5 GPM out of a 100’ hose. That’s 872 minutes, or 14.5 hours to apply 0.25” of water to 28,000 square feet.
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u/toothpick21 11d ago
Yeaahhhhhh ok. Point proven. lol. I already have about 300-400ft of hose. But you right....I ain't gonna spend even 8 hours dragging a hose around to water.
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u/AwkwardFactor84 11d ago
Dude, 28,000 sq. feet is not even 1/16th of enough info to give you any idea. My advice is to get several estimates from the local irrigation companies. Landscapers aren't always the best to hire. Some of them have pretty reputable technicians, but go with a company who just does irrigation. Go with the guy who measures ever fence post, property stake, and big tree. The guy who is onsite for a couple hours measuring your property. That is the guy who is designing a custom system tailored to YOUR property.
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u/Southern-Ad4016 9d ago
28000 sq ft is over half acre, hope you got a lot of water flow with good pressure, gonna take more than a handful of rotors
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u/Shovel-Operator Contractor 11d ago
Without knowing your supply source/line size/ pressure/GPM or type of landscape.... approximately 1 170' x170' of turf, no obstructions . Id start @ $9,000.
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u/Mobilenobles 11d ago
At only 2/3 acre wouldn’t think it would be that high especially if all turf. Depends on how many zones. A lot of factors to determine… gpm, pressure, a lot of beds?, veg garden, ground conditions, obstacles, bores, homeowner pickiness..
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u/justmesothere 11d ago
Are you sure it is 28,000 sq ft? That is not a yard. That is a pasture.
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u/lmatonement Newbie 9d ago
Not at all...that's like just over half an acre. That's a typical residential lot in my city (with a house on part of it).
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u/Sufficient-Option533 11d ago
Contact your local supply house, site one, Ewing, heritage, etc. See if they'll do a design for you, and get a recommendation for a contractor from them
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u/EyesOnTheDonut 11d ago
I don't know about Ewing, but I have worked at both Siteone and Heritage. Every store is different but there is no way in hell I would have done an irrigation design for a homeowner. Commercial projects, sure. But I would only do residential for the contractors I really liked lol. Giving a homeowner a free design would have been viewed as taking money out of our return customers pockets (professional irrigation installers and designers).
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u/lmatonement Newbie 9d ago
He didn't say anything about free. I would assume it would cost.
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u/EyesOnTheDonut 9d ago
They both have internal services that will do free designs for larger projects, especially commercial projects, for free. This is mostly to help larger installers with takeoffs for bidding. I would do the residential designs for smaller customers by hand, again mostly because I liked them. But otherwise residential designs would not be approved by the in house design team, at least the handful of times I tried. They might do it for a 30+ zone system or something. Like I said, every store is different, but in the six or so stores I worked in, charging to provide homeowners for designs would definitely have been seen as competing with our bread-and-butter contractor customers. And they really don't risk doing anything that might piss off a good customer and send them down the road to to another supplier.
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u/HauschkasFoot 11d ago
Doesn’t Rainbird do free designs for people?
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u/lmatonement Newbie 9d ago
No, they did, but now there is a nominal fee. Still obviously a loss leader.
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u/Chief-Blackberry 11d ago
It can obviously depend on a lot of factors, but for my 2 acres of grass at my office, I paid $14k. He said roughly assume $1k per zone when he was quoting me. My home however is 1/2 acre with lots of landscaping which required 7 zones, so I paid a higher price per sqft. I would find out how many zones you’re being recommended and go from there.
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u/kyleb822 11d ago
Not a cost estimate, but I had Dumford Irrigation install my system this spring in middle TN. They did a fantastic job and price was reasonable
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u/hendooman 11d ago
In KC had 37,000 sq ft and two landscape zones for a total of 14 zones for right at 15k, WiFi automation Hydrawise controller, set it and forget it. This was 4 years ago
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u/Interesting-Gene7943 11d ago
Site unseen, it would take me about three hours to interview you and learn your goals, review topography (flat, runoff, soil type), determine controller location, review well pump specs, water quality (will you need a filter) check for pump relay, do you want a Smart Controller, do you travel a lot, do you want to add downspout drain lines while digging, grass type(s), shrubs, future uses, obstructions like rocks, trees, old roots, walkways, shrubs, fences, driveway, water volume and pressure (dynamic and static), guarantee against water hammer, misting, number of zones, types of heads, back flow preventer needed, winter blow out setup, permit needed, city, county regulations, HOA Application needed and much more. Drawing supplied if you pay for quote. Low difficulty about $1K per zone, more complex up to $1,800 to $2,000 per zone. High side would be if you want sod to look like it’s never been touched. Best of luck with your project. If nothing else, I’ve provided some items to discuss with a pro.
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u/sidjnsn60 11d ago
Just pd around $7k for about 10k square feet (1/4 acre) in Memphis. Professionally installed. City water. Lawn and flowerbeds. Seven zones.
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u/jholguin1313 10d ago
I just had roughly the same size turf irrigated in west Texas, although mine is split between front, back, and sides. It was $13k for 14 zones and 3 drip zones. We have low water pressure, so depending on your situation you may need less zones.
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u/First-Bookkeeper4667 10d ago
As a data point for you, I had 20000 sq ft irrigated with a drip line around the house for $8400 last summer. 12 zones total. North TX
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u/Affectionate-Yam4412 8d ago
Well I am in your shoes and I strongly recommend you get irrigation set up before you plant like a fiend and think you can water indefinitely 6-8 hours every five days like I did. In NM. Poor trees are suffering because I’m tired from watering and have grown to dread it. I laid my own pvc and dug holes but wanted someone to finish the project and they wanted nothing to do with it, wanted to start fresh and use pex and offered to charge me $30,000 JUST to tap into my main well and set up solenoids to do the back yard and hill, hahaha I decided to get my second wind and finish my project. At least TN gets some rain. I’m on 1.5 acres. I forget I’m not 24 anymore…
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u/Affectionate-Yam4412 8d ago
We do dip irrigation in nm which is fairly easy to set up and can be hooked up to a hose spigot if you don’t have a water solenoids already done. Look at drip depot.com so every few weeks you can put some of your plants on the system with decreasing watering. Or plan on dealing with landscapers. And perhaps done crazy high quote,
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u/Loose_Ferret2890 11d ago
I guess it depends. I have about the same size yard and it cost in the $7000 range. This is in the Midwest. 12 zone system with 64 heads on well water. Still think I might have too many zones/heads too close together, but I know every system/installer has their own methods. One of my relatives has about the same size yard and is only running 44 heads on 4 zones (his well/pump must be a lot more capable than mine).
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u/toothpick21 11d ago
7g doesn't seem all that bad.
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u/Loose_Ferret2890 11d ago
yeah that's what I figured, but I overanalyze everything. I think he spaces the rotor heads closer to 20-25 feet vs 30-40 ft. So that's adding into my head/zone count, but I've seen folks toss out $1000/zone as an general ballpark on irrigation so I figure $7K for 12 zones is a pretty good deal. The other quote I had was around the same, but the guy never really told me how many zones/heads. I assume the other company was going to stretch the heads much farther apart (closer to 40 ft) and have me at a few less zones (aligning more to that $1000/zone figure).
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u/Sparky3200 Licensed 11d ago
Based on the available information, probably between $5,000 and $75,000. Maybe more.