Accounting for Multiple Water Sources or Points of Connection (POCs)

• Multiple POCs or Water Meters Feeding into the Same Tee
• Multiple Water Meters Feeding Two Different Sides of the Loop
• Error Message: Some Looped Pipe Has No Calculated Flow
• Not Showing Shut-Off Valves in Plan or Schedule
• Multiple Sources and the Irrigation Schedule
• Multiple Sources and the Runtime Schedule
• Troubleshooting

Some irrigation system designs will require you to account for more than one water source or point of connection (POC). For example, a site might draw water from two or more water meters or wells that you need to tie into your system.

Before attempting to account for multiple water sources, you'll want to familiarize yourself with our Source Data tool. You'll use Source Data to configure all water sources for your project and place them in your drawing.

Multiple POCs or Water Meters Feeding into the Same Tee

Does your site draw water from two or more water meters that will be feeding into different sides of the loop? If so, follow our steps for multiple water meters, opposite sides.

Some irrigation system designs will require you to account for more than one water source into one tee. For example, a site might draw water from two or more wells that you need to tie into your system. Our Custom POC feature allows you to show these multiple POCs or meters in your drawing for design purposes, but combine them into a single source for the purposes of calculation. Essentially, you'll be treating the combination of all your POCs as a single water source that will reflect their cumulative flow. If you have water meters that will feed into the same tee, you'll add them as a single POC for the purpose of calculation.

In the following example, we'll show you how to design a system that draws water from two wells – one with a 60 GPM flow and 100 psi of pressure, and the other with a 100 GPM flow and 100 psi of pressure.

Select the Custom tab.

 

Enter the total flow of all your POCs in the Available Maximum Flow field. In our example, we'll enter 160 (for our two wells' 60 + 100 GPM).

 

If you want, write a description of the water sources in the Description field.

 

Enter your system's anticipated pressure in the Static Pressure at Service field. In our example, both wells have a pressure of 100 psi, so we'll enter 100.

 

Click OK to save your changes.

Unlike flow, pressure from multiple POCs isn't cumulative. In general, just enter the pressure from the source with the highest pressure.

Click New to add a new POC, and continue to do so until you arrive at the number of POCs you need.

 

In our example, we only need one additional POC, so we only need to click New once.

After you've added all your POCs, it's time to place them in your drawing. Select the first POC you want to place, and click Place to place it. Then place your second POC in the same way.

Need to change the name of a POC as it appears in the drawing? Right-click it and select Edit Attribute from the menu that opens. You can then enter any value you want in the Value field.

 

Now it's time to connect our POCs with mainline using the Draw Mainline tool. We'll then tee off with another length of mainline that will connect to the rest of the system.

Now create and place a third POC that will hold the pressure and flow of the other 2 POCs. Place it at the tee so it's connected to the two other POCs. This step essentially transforms the third POC at the tee into the de facto water source for our system, since it funnels all available flow into the rest of the system.

When sizing the mainline, select the third POC (the one at the tee) to size.

Before you run an Irrigation Schedule, put the third POC on its own layer and freeze that layer. The schedule won't pick up the third POC but will list the other two as needed.

If you need to show the size of the two pieces of mainline, use our View Data/Edit Equipment tool, select the mainline you need to size, and then change the size manually.

Multiple Water Meters Feeding Different Sides of the Loop

Irrigation F/X treats water meters a little differently from other POCs when they won't be right next to each other feeding the same tee. If your site draws water from multiple meters that are in different locations of your project site, you'll need to complete the following steps to account for these multiple meters.

1. Because your meters are on opposite sides of the mainline loop, we need to isolate them. We'll do so using shut-off valves.

2. You'll be placing shut-off valves to isolate the meters and their respective portions of the system. This could be as simple as placing two shut-off valves, one on each portion of the loop, placed in the middle of the irrigation system between the two meters.

In the example image below, the locations of the two water meters are indicated by magenta arrows. We used the Highlight Station tool to highlight the mainline routing and develop a plan of how to separate the irrigation system into two distinct halves.

Once you've placed shut-off valves on the mainline, set them to closed. Use Highlight Station again to confirm you've isolated the water meters. In the example image below, you can see that only half of the mainline is highlighted.

3. Use our Draw Mainline tool to create two separate loops – either an upper loop and lower loop, or a right and left loop. Note that these loops will be temporary. You'll just use them to size your mainline before re-creating your main loop.

In the example image below, using Highlight Station, we can see one of the new loops. Ideally, the new sections of mainline will be drawn next to the shut-off valves.

4. Size the mainline pipe connected to each meter.

The system sizes for a single source or POC at a time. If common pipe is used by multiple POCs, you'll need to be careful to size those with the highest demands last.

If your two water sources include a primary and a backup, size your system for the backup water source.

Note that you can use the Select Valves button in the Size Mainline dialog to size only the pipe necessary for a certain range of valves.

5. Remove the temporary mainline pieces from each loop, and connect the original pieces of mainline back together.

Error Message: Some Looped Pipe Has No Calculated Flow

Did you see the following message while sizing your mainline?

Some looped pipe has no calculated flow.

Abort sizing and highlight those pipe segments?

If so, the issue is likely occurring within the sections of mainline that lie between or near the shut-off valves. Click Yes in the error message to stop sizing the pipe and highlight all pieces of mainline with no calculated flow associated with the water source you just sized.

In the example image below, we can see a section of mainline that the system highlighted. We can then use the Edit Equipment tool to select that section of pipe and see that there is no flow or pressure reading indicated in the Equipment Info dialog box.

You can use that same dialog box to apply the correct pipe size to that piece of mainline, and then apply a pipe label manually if necessary.

After you've confirmed that the highlighted mainline sections do not need any flow, you can re-size the mainline. When prompted with the error message again, click No to continue sizing the mainline. Ensure that you investigate the highlighted pieces of mainline associated with each POC in your drawing.

Not Showing Shut-Off Valves in Plan or Schedule

If you don't want the shut-off valves you placed to show in your plan or your schedule, you'll need to make a non-plot layer to move them as well. Add a new layer – we suggest naming it LI-EQPM-NPLT – and ensure the layer is set to Nonplot. Then move the shut-off valves to this layer.

To prevent the Irrigation Schedule from quantifying those shut-off valves, freeze them before running the schedule.

Multiple Sources and the Irrigation Schedule

The Irrigation Schedule will list all your POCs or water meters unless you tell it not to. For details, see our instructions for listing only one of your sources in the schedule.

Multiple Sources and the Runtime Schedule

Our Runtime Schedule tool allows you to account for multiple water sources or POCs as well.

Troubleshooting

Issue: Points of Connection (POCs) are showing up with duplicate numbers or letters in the Runtime Schedule dialog box