Frequently asked questions
Find answers to common questions about Irrigation Designer: how scale calibration works from a background plan, how to group sprinklers into zones within your water supply limit, how browser IndexedDB keeps your designs private on your device, and how to install the tool for full offline progressive web app support.
What does Irrigation Designer do?
Irrigation Designer turns a picture of your garden into a scaled drawing you can measure. You load a background image, tell the app the real length of one line in it — a wall, a fence run, a driveway edge — and from that point every distance on the canvas is in metres. Sprinklers, pipes, lawn outlines and obstacles all sit on that same scale, so the coverage you see is the coverage you get.
- Draw lawn areas as polygons and read their area in square metres and square feet.
- Draw houses, sheds and driveways as obstacles so you can see where water should not land.
- Draw pipe runs and read the length of every segment as you place it.
- Group heads into zones that run together, colour-coded on the canvas.
- Export the design as a JSON project file, a high-resolution PNG, or a parts list.
How do you set the scale?
Scale in Irrigation Designer comes from calibration, not from guessing at pixels. You upload a background image such as your garden plan, pick the calibration tool, and draw a line along something whose real length you know. Enter that length and the app solves for pixels-per-metre. Every sprinkler radius, pipe length and lawn area after that is computed from real-world metres, which is what makes the coverage circles trustworthy.
Which sprinklers are in the database?
The built-in database carries 19 models from Rain Bird, Hunter, GARDENA and Toro, covering 4 head types: rotor, static spray, rotary stream, oscillating pop-up. Between them they hold 26 nozzle options and 31 manufacturer performance rows, each pairing an operating pressure with the radius and flow rate it produces.
That range runs from Toro 570Z Pro-Series with the PSN8-F nozzle at 2.1 bar, which throws 2.5 m, up to Toro T5 RapidSet Series with the 6.0 nozzle at 3.1 bar, which throws 14 m. You can inspect every nozzle specification on the dedicated Sprinklers page.
Does Irrigation Designer work offline?
Yes. Irrigation Designer installs from the browser as a progressive web app and runs with no connection once installed. Designs autosave locally to IndexedDB, so closing the tab does not lose work, and no design is ever sent to a server. That also means the only copy lives on that device — export the project file if it matters.
What does it cost?
Irrigation Designer is free and needs no account. The source is on GitHub. There is no paid tier, no export limit and no watermark, because the app runs entirely in your browser and costs nothing to serve.
Are my garden plans sent to a server?
No. All layout drawings, background images, and project data are processed and saved entirely inside your local browser. Nothing is ever uploaded or tracked on a server.