Location:

Mountfort Park
Manurewa
New Zealand

Site Profile

Landscape Application:
Sports Field
Size:
3 hectares
Temperature Range:
20-30
Elevation:
10 metres
Retrofit:
2015
Mountfort Park in Manurewa, South Auckland, is comprised of two rugby fields and a football field.

Peter Robin of Water Supply Products (WSP) was contracted by consultants to design several sports field irrigation projects throughout Auckland (including Mountford Park) using a non-generic specification that then went out to tender. Recreational Services Ltd. won the contract to install irrigation and a sand carpet and re-seed the surface of Mountfort Park. They chose to install Hunter irrigation products from WSP. Carl Sutton from Recreational Services Ltd. said they had used WSP for the past eight years. “Water Supply Products' service and backup is great and Hunter's sports field irrigation gear is second-to-none.”

The Challenge

Manurewa’s water pressure was too low for a commercial sports field popup system to work effectively. The challenge was to design an irrigation system with a scheduled coefficient of 1.3, with a D.U 80% in order to irrigate two rugby fields and a soccer field. 

The Solution

A pump station was installed to operate two sprinkler stations simultaneously (about 10L/sec at six bar delivery pressure), controlled via a variable speed drive to hold a constant pressure in the mainlines. The irrigation system includes Hunter's I-25 pop-up sprinklers complete with stainless steel risers and Hunter swing joints, installed in a square pattern 17m x 17m throughout the playing surface. Hunter ICV solenoid valves control 4-5 sprinklers per station. This provided uniform irrigation coverage across the entire playing surface, needed to ensure proper turf growth. The system automatically irrigates the fields at night using a Hunter I-Core Dual Decoder irrigation controller. The decoder system links all solenoid stations to the controller with one twin-core low voltage cable. The league field has 12 solenoid stations, while an adjacent football field has an additional 12 stations. The system can be expanded to irrigate other fields in the future.

The Result

The result is an irrigation system that applies 4mm precipitation rate per day and provides local sports players with a healthy turf surface all year round. “Healthy turf is what we are after, and WSP and Hunter helped make that happen,” said Carl.