The Last Word In Sports Field Irrigation Design

Sports Field Irrigation Systems

Maintaining high-performance sports turf is an exacting science.

To deliver consistently presentable, predictable and resilient fields that play well - and bounce back after heavy use - every aspect of your management regime has to be optimized for healthy root growth and excellent drainage.

Your fertilizer will be a carefully-formulated blend of nutrients; optimized for the specific species of bermuda or ryegrass that you’re using. Your maintenance regime will be fine-tuned to the needs of your field(s), and your machinery will be sourced from world-class brands that are known to produce dependable equipment.

In our opinion, your irrigation system needs to have a similar pedigree. After all, consistent and reliable hydration is the key to growing healthy and attractive sports turf. The American Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA)’s Guide To Maintaining Natural Turf Grass says that good irrigation is often the key to protecting the long-term health of a sports field.

And anyone who works in the field will know that this doesn’t just mean that you need to spray water on the ground once or twice a week. To get consistent results, you need an irrigation system capable of delivering a precise amount of water at a specific time.

Consistently Reliable Performance

More than that: you need to be able to coordinate your irrigation with scheduled activities to ensure that water is never sitting on the field in the 24 hours preceding use; modulate precipitation rates to eliminate the risk of ponding after rainfall, and adjust to the specifics of your field’s drainage capabilities.

You need an intelligent irrigation system that’s tailored to your venue – and built with a focus on delivering consistently reliable performance.

That’s why an increasingly large percentage of Florida-based developers are installing reliable and well-optimized Hoover pumping systems straight off the bat.

According to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), sub-optimal irrigation systems often waste money and rob your field of the soil-water-nutrient environment required for optimum growth.

That’s why we’re breaking with the status quo to provide best-in-class solutions designed for each individual ground. It's a holistic and value-driven approach to irrigation design ensuring our sports field systems help to:

Protect and nourish your fields

To encourage the deep and dense root systems required for durable sports fields, water has to be applied with great care. Our systems are designed to give you complete control over the coverage and precipitation rate, scheduling and ad-hoc use of your irrigation – using any cellular device to optimize and refine your irrigation.
Preserve your budget

We understand that you’re operating on a tight budget and need to justify every dollar spent on your irrigation system. Choosing Hoover means that you’ll pay less over the lifetime of your system. That’s less money spent on avoidable repair bills, less money spent on preventable renovations, and less of your budget dedicated to over-inflated utility bills.
Limit unnecessary wastage

The cost of energy and water are rising fast. As is internal and external pressure to conserve Florida’s natural resources. We take efficiency seriously, and design sports field irrigation systems that are fine-tuned to make every drop of water count – and ensure your stadium or ballpark’s power bill isn’t twice the size it needs to be.
Keep things running smoothly

Above all, our design philosophy is one of continual optimization and improvement. Yes, you need to purchase a reliable and robust system that keeps your fields healthy, but you also need a partner that’ll help you maintain that system over the next 10+ years – and show you how to eke out further cost and efficiency savings over the long-term.

Providing Florida’s Ballparks And Stadiums With

Custom Irrigation Solutions That Go The Distance

We design, build, install and maintain custom irrigation systems that are calibrated to meet the needs of Florida’s sporting venues. These systems always make use of the latest irrigation technology: We were one of the first to incorporate dedicated (per-motor) VFDs, mount our stations on grooved steel pads and make use of 30 micron filter screens to shield our systems from damage wrought by fine particulate matter.

But that’s not the main selling point of our sports field irrigation systems. If we’re being totally honest with ourselves, the main reason we’re the supplier of choice for JetBlue park and other - premiere - sporting venues is our approach to problem solving.

With over 40 years of hands-on experience, we’re the only Florida-based irrigation specialists with the knowledge and expertise required to design custom systems for modern-day sports fields.

We’re also innovators at heart; excited to embrace complex challenges that force us to dig deep, and find the creativity required to do things like run custom intake lines halfway across a lake, to ensure that a system in an area with frequent water table fluctuations never run dry – or build best-in-class software to connect geographically disparate components.

When you select us to design, build and install your sports field irrigation system, you’ll get the domain knowledge needed to design around common weak spots; the hands-on experience needed to avoid hidden pitfalls, and a no-nonsense approach to pump station design – centered on accommodating the unique aspects of your complex or sports ground.

You’re also buying unrivaled aftermarket support from a team that wants to see your irrigation system and sports fields flourish. After all, our business is built on the back of our reputation, and we know that we’ll only continue to thrive if we continue to provide excellent service for the lifetime of our pump stations.

To date, there are approximately 9,000 Hoover pump stations installed across the state of Florida – including custom systems built for sports fields and ballparks, university green spaces, master-planned communities and golf courses. We’re the partner of choice for venues like JetBlue Park, CoolToday Park and CenturyLink Sports Complex. We have a proven track record and we’re always excited to speak with sports turf or venue managers who are looking for a new irrigation system.

Jetblue Park baseball stadium at night during a game

A Hoover Irrigation Pump Station installed on location

Neatly cut lines of grass on a baseball field

Hoover’s service team along with Hoover Flowguard are so valuable to an owner because they protect the capital investment, pump, irrigation system piping and landscaping.

Matt Eggerman, Director of Field Operations

Ballpark of the Palm Beaches

A Smarter Way To Irrigate Sports Fields

Off-the-shelf systems and an “off-the-shelf” approach to irrigation design will never produce the results needed to ensure the longevity of high-performance sports turf. To get best-in-class results, you have to find a partner that’s willing to roll their sleeves up and dive into your project; designing a custom system that lets your turf shine.

Valued By Sports Turf Managers Across The State

We’re confident that we are the perfect partner for Florida’s sports turf managers. Our systems stand head and shoulders above competing pump stations; delivering better results and saving on the preventable repair bills that chew through most maintenance budgets. In our customers’ eyes, there simply is no comparison.

Pioneering A New Approach

Anyone who’s worked in the industry for any length of time will know that there is a certain orthodoxy when it comes to pump station design. For too long, entrenched interests have quashed well-engineered solutions by persuading everyone that they really need outmoded technologies that don’t account for modern management practices.

If you hear your irrigation contractor telling you that you need at least 120 psi to irrigate, that you really need a turbine pump station or that one variable frequency drive (VFD) is more than enough, you’re talking to the wrong person.

Robust and Efficient Sports Turf Irrigation

Leveraging the Latest Advances in Irrigation Technology

When designing irrigation systems for sports fields, we always start with a blank slate; allowing our in-depth requirement gathering process to dictate the components selected for your system.

We appreciate that it can be incredibly difficult to work out who to trust when it comes to big-ticket purchases like a new sports field irrigation system.

To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of the red flag phrases and common fallacies that bad contractors rely on. If your consultant parrots any of these talking points, it may be worth finding a more reliable sounding board.

You need at least 120 psi to irrigate a Sports Field

High pressures are needed to ensure that your pop-up sprinklers reach every yard of sports turf, but you probably don’t need the 120+ psi recommended by most irrigation consultants.

Despite significant advances in irrigation technology, a lot of so-called specialists still fixate on top-line stats that are demonstrably out of date, and fail to account for the reality of irrigating a modern-day sports field.

One VFD is good enough

Intelligent use of high-quality VFDs (variable frequency drives) is the key to efficient irrigation, but they’re not a silver bullet.

Some sports field irrigation designers or consultants tell managers that they’ll only need one VFD to radically improve the efficiency and durability of their design, but we think the only way to guarantee good results is to ensure that every pump has a dedicated VFD – giving your system the flexibility it needs to deliver the right amount of water at any given time.

Flowguard dashboard being monitored on a tablet device infront of an Irrigation Pump Station

Remote monitoring solutions are all fairly interchangeable

Most modern irrigation systems ship with some sort of telemetry or remote monitoring software, but it’s a mistake to assume that these systems are all made equal.

We spent significant time and money developing a complete irrigation solution that provides in-depth information about the overall health of your irrigation system and allows you to spot problems before they develop. It’s a level of insight that makes some contractors uncomfortable, but it’s a huge advantage for anyone managing a premiere sports field.

Only a turbine pump system has the power to irrigate sports turf

Large turbine pumps are commonly recommended for sports field irrigation systems because they can move large amounts of water in a short space of time. However, they’re not the best application for most sports fields in Florida that draw from surface water.

Does it really make sense to spend an extra six figures on a wet well when there is a much better way to deliver reliable water to your field? A way that includes the additional benefits and efficiencies a more carefully considered system configured to your exact needs can offer?

Wellen ParkCase Study

Case Study: Wellen Park

A master-planned community of 11,000 acres. Some 60,000 residents will eventually call Wellen Park home, supported with all the infrastructure expected of a 21st century city.

We're proud to be supporting Wellen Park with a completely scaleable and smart, water delivery and management solution, with every pump station managed intelligently. It's a solution that will both endure, and ensure the highest standards of water and energy efficiency for years to come.

A Turnkey Solution That Leaves

No Stone Unturned

Having worked in the industry for over four decades, we’re well aware of the difficult challenges faced by Florida’s sports turf managers. To keep your grass green, resilient and healthy, you need to know that your irrigation system will perform reliably.

You also need to be able to adjust your irrigation in response to unexpected rainfall (a constant risk in the summer months) – and have the ability to tweak and refine your schedule on the fly so that you can avoid ponding and other, equally adverse outcomes that are often linked to inflexible or suboptimal irrigation practices.

Then there’s the need to understand precise precipitation and drainage rates; the needs of individual grass blends and any quirks of your space, like natural hollows or slight inclines that can allow excess irrigation water to pool on your turf.

Enough to give anyone a headache isn’t it? But help is at hand. Rather than offering a simple (transactional) approach to buying an irrigation system, we prefer to partner with our clients for the long-term: Offering tools like Hoover Flowguard to help them manage their irrigation system from the comfort of their office or home, and providing hands-on support for any issues that arise in the field.

We also have a dedicated, in-house installation team that specialize in large commercial projects so from the moment we sit down to start designing your new system, you know that you’ll be in safe hands. You’ll also know that you can call or email at any time to troubleshoot with our engineers, talk through any potential optimizations or just keep up-to-date with your new pump station’s ongoing maintenance.

For busy superintendents, irrigation consultants and sports turf managers, we’ve found that close working relationships are the best way to ensure that everyone gets the most out of a Hoover irrigation system and for us, that’s all that really matters.