The correct way to layout a pop up lawn watering system is to arrange the pop ups so that they throw the water in to the middle of the lawn rather than running them down the centre of the lawn throwing water out at 360 degrees. In other words pop ups should be if possible located on the edge of the lawn as per the diagram below.
Pop ups installed in this way water the lawn more efficiently as the area that we want to water receives the water and little or no water is wasted with over spray. This is even more important with paths and patios as when you spray water repeatedly on to a smooth stone surface a clear bacteria can develop that forms almost like a think jelly like film which is very slippery. Over longer periods of time the stone could develop algae or moss and this again would look messy.
In the simple examples above we can see that the picture on the left is throwing water in to the centre of the lawn while the picture on the right is an example of central 360 degree rotors that will water the same area. On the right hand picture we have assumed the patio is at the bottom end and used a 180 degree nozzle as I am sure that at the very least patio furniture etc should stay dry
When watering near a drive we again want to throw the water away from the drive as water sprayed on to a tarmac drive will encourage moss or if cars are parked on the drive we would soon see streaks for on the cars unless we were using recycled rainwater.
How Close together should we put a pop up
Some companies suggest the 3 or point rules however this put a huge amount of water on per square metre and ultimately adds more zones. What we think is the best alternative is to use a pop up that applies water evenly to start with like the MP Rotator in a pro spray body and space the bodies at intervals equivalent of the radius of the spray as per the example below. The pop up in the example has a radius of 5 metres ( the central pop up has a radius of 5 metres and a diameter of 10 metres. So the pop up bodies are spaced 5 metres apart starting and finishing in the corners at 90 degrees
