Auto water system - not enough pressure?

Hi all,

Newbie garden person here! I've installed an automatic watering system, which does most of my garden. i've chopped and changed all the piping combo's and now its all pretty much done.

Only thing is some of the lines/pipe ends doesn't seem to have enough water pressure as the beginning - obviously. I'm not really worried about most of them as they are on drippers anyway. But where I've put in mini sprinklers (pot ones) they don't sprinkle but rather drip (the last ones anyway).

My garden is quite small and only has one tap, and I've tried to put more pipes from the main tap with less off shoots as poss, but does anyone have any suggestions of how I can increase the water pressure for the end of line outlets - would a aqua pod help at all?

Any advice appreciated!

 

Can you have a "ring main" instead of a "spur"?

If you could put a Y piece such that BOTH ends of your irrigation pipe were "fed" that might help even out the pressure - I suppose you would then have a low-pressure point in the middle, rather than the end, but it should be better than just a linear system.

Of course if the route of your pipe is basically linear, going away from the tap, this isn't going to help!

 

Something as simple as a pipe clamp to decrease water flow on the first few sprinklers, and therefore increase the pressure elsewhere could work. these http://www.escstores.biz/gc5ul.html from a UK store would cost 50p - or you could make one with two short lengths of wood and a couple of wood screws.

Kristen's idea of a ring instead of a spur is worth looking into if you have some Y joints and some spare pipe.

However, mains water pressure is not that constant - it's generally lower during the summer (when your plants really need the water) and higher in autumn/winter/spring.

Even the difference between watering during something popular on TV;
While the program is screening perhaps 7% of the people that share your water main are staring at the TV.
While the adverts are screening people are washing cups, filling kettles, flushing toilets, etc.

This makes a huge difference. If you are testing the system in the daytime but running the automated watering in the dead of night then it may actually be working correctly.

I would recommend that you split the system into two separate pipe networks and then stagger one to come on after the other, using an additional water timer. (£14)

Can you post any more information on the system that you have?

 

Thanks for your replies guys,

My water timer comes on at 10pm, so I wouldn't of thought peak time. Mind you I don't think thats really an issue, as like I say the pots at the beginning of the chain are fine its just the few at the very end. They are getting watered, its just that the mini sprinklers aren't spinkling, more dripping. I put in the mini sprinklers so that the whole pot got watered and not just one bit in the middle.

Here's a very 'rough' diagram of my system, it does look like a lot of connections coming off, but some pots are so small that they have drippers and the larger ones have mini sprinklers coming off. All the pipe is the 7mm pipe, and attached to the timer is the 7mm attachment which has space for 5 lines coming off.

Now your probrably going to say thats too many outlets for the system, but I've only one tap in the garden, and thought this was the best way to do my very small garden and its various pots. Like I say, they all get watered, just the ones at the end (which I've ringed in red) that I'd like more of a sprinkle than dripping, so that all of the compost gets wet, not just the middle.

Hope all of that waffle makes sense!

[/img]

 

" Now your probrably going to say thats too many outlets for the system"

Yup! You could put the sprinklers on a separate "channel" so they came on by themselves. The other problem might be "All the pipe is the 7mm pipe" as that is pretty skinny, and there will be some pressure loss, due to friction, if the length to the mini-sprinklers is long. Could you put a larger-bore pipe on that stretch?

Re: "separate channels"

Gardena do a device which has four (I think) hose outlets. Each time your timer goes off it jumps round to the next outlet. So if you have a timer that can do, say, 4 different waterings a day you just set it for X minutes for the first circuit, Y minutes for the second and so on.

I'll see if I can find a link, I was looking at it the other day.

 

http://www.gardena.co.uk/catalog/index.cfm

and put this product code in the Search box

1198-20

and its six channels, not four :thumb: and each can be garden hose or irrigation pipe - so you could run some larger pipe on your mini-sprinkler circuit.

They probably cost an arm-and-a-leg though :confused: