What can I do with overlapping zones?

I just installed a gen II 8 zone controller and I’ve been working on getting it set up yesterday and today. I already went to the soil survey website and got that data plugged in and I have some catch cups coming later today so I can test my sprinkler head outputs.

Unfortunately, as I’ve been working today I discovered that whoever originally installed this sprinker system was a moron. (It was already installed when I bought the house). Not only have they mixed head types among the zones, but there are several places where the zones overlap significantly.

For example, in the front yard there are 5 rotating heads… one in each corner with a 90 degree rotation and then one in the center that rotates 360 degrees. The center one covers nearly all of the yard. However, the yard is split over two zones…

One zone runs two corners plus the center (as well as a number of spray heads in a garden) and a second zone runs the other two corners (and some spray heads along the side yard and one of the back yard rotors).

I have a similar issue in the back yard (although in that case there are six rotating heads… three along each of the long edges. Five of those run by themselves on one zone and the sixth one (one of the middle ones) runs with the side yard spray heads and two of the rotors from the front yard.

Any thoughts on what to do with this mess?

For the front yard zone with rotors and spray heads I figure I’ll probably set the output based on the rotors. This probably means that garden with the spray heads will get some extra water, but I figure that’s not really a bad thing since the shrubs and trees in the garden will have deeper roots and the right now the zone is set for grass and a shallow root system.

For the parts that overlap in the front and back I’ll probably base the output on the parts of the zone with no overlap which would cause the parts with overlap to get under watered for each of the zones they are part of, but hopefully underwatering on two zones will add up to a normal amount of water after both zones run. I’m planning to run a flex schedule, so this probably isn’t a perfect solution, but each of the zones are really set up the same way as far as soil type, plant type, sun exposure, etc, so hopefully they will all be watered a similar amount.

Finally I’m not quite sure what to do with the zone that has two rotors in the front, spray heads on the side, and one rotor in the back. I’ll wait until I get my catch cups and see how bad the difference in the water output is on the two head types.

Do you guys think I’m on the right track here? Any other suggestions that I haven’t considered?

Thanks much:)

Try replacing the corner heads with the rainbird rain equivalent nozzle rotatory heads. I love them.

http://www.rainbird.com/products/rn-high-efficiency-rotary-nozzles-0

I don’t have any that look like this, seems they have made a design change prior to why my local stores sell, but I have been using them for years, they might help just cover the corners you are missing with that main central head. These things work great.