Village of Mount Prospect Project

May 2010 - Solar Rain Pump - Automatic System

In this ongoing project we have with the Village of Mount Prospect we installed a self sustaining irrigation system at the corner of Route 83 and Golf Road. Challenges:

  • Flower bed at the "Welcome to Mt. Prospect" sign needs irrigating 3 times a week
  • Nowhere to collect rain water
  • Labor reduction is key
village project, with tank and irrigation lines visible

Our solution to the problem was to half bury a 330 gallon tank and use a Solar Rain Pump - Automatic unit to irrigate the flower bed automatically. Water then would be delivered by a truck once every 2 weeks instead of the 3 times a week they used to stop to water the flower bed. In the picture to the left you can see the brown lattice covering the tank and pump on the left side of the picture as well as the irrigation lines on the right side of the picture.


tank

Using a backhoe the tank was buried approximately half way in the ground (around 2 1/2 feet). The Solar Rain Pump is on top of the tank in a lockable case that is bolted to the tank to prevent tampering.


irrigation lines in the flower bed

To effectively use the water from the tank a efficient irrigation system was installed. A 1/2" mainline supplies 16 rows of 1/4" drip emitter tubing with 1/2 gallon per hour emitters spaced 6" apart. This setup gives even coverage to the entire flower bed and eliminates the need to hand water the bed.



SRP-A automatically waters the flower bed

The Solar Rain Pump - Automatic with its programmable timer is set to water the flower bed 4 days a week. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the pump irrigates for 10 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon. On Saturday the pump irrigates for 10 minutes to cover the flower bed for the weekend. This is actually more irrigating than they were originally doing because they did not want to send people over to the remote flower bed on the weekends.



Part of the garden with drip irrigation running through

A 15-Watt solar panel keeps the system recharged and makes the system fully automated. Taking a fully manual watering process that was very labor intensive (maintenance 3 times a week) and making it automated saves the Village time and money only requiring them to fill the tank once every 2 weeks.